fflTAC 


; 


THE  JEWS  OF  ROUMANIA  AND 
THE  TREATY  OF  BERLIN 


The  marvelous  contributions  of  the  Jewish  people  to  the  spiritual 
and  intellectual  wealth  of  the  world  entitle  them  to  the  gratitude  and 
homage,  not  the  hatred  and  persecution  of  mankind. 

If  gratitude  were  a  supreme  virtue  of  nations,  as  it  should  be  of 
individuals,  there  would  never  be  any  organized  governmental  perse- 
cution of  the  Jews. 

If  her  sense  of  national  honor  and  international  obligation  does  not 
incline  Roumnuia  to  deeds  of  justice  and  righteousness,  then  let  the 
strong  arm  of  force  be  used  and  the  wrath  of  the  nations  be  visited 
upon  her. 


SPEECH 


OP 


HON.  WALTER  M.  CHANDLER 


OF 


YORK 


HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 


OCTOBER  10,  1913 


13001— 1245G 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT   PRINTING   OFFICE 
1913 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON.  WALTER  M.  CHANDLER, 

OF    NEW    YORK. 


THE  JEWS  OF  ROUMANIA  AND  THE  TREATY  OF  BERLIN. 

Mr.  CHANDLER  of  New  York.  Mr.  Speaker,  I  wish  now  to 
address  myself  to  the  subject  of  Roumanian  persecution  of  the 
Jew  in  defiance  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin,  and  I  preface  my  re- 
marks by  reciting  a  joint  resolution  which  I  have  introduced 
this  afternoon. 
The  joint  resolution  is  as  follows: 

House  joint  resolution  138. 

Whereas  the  following  is  the  literal  text  of  Articles  XLIII  and  XL1V  of 
the  treaty  of  Berlin  of  July  13,  1878  : 

"  XLIII.  The  high  contracting  parties  recognize  Hie  independence  of 
Roumania,  subject  to  the  conditions  set  forth  in  the  two  following 
articles. 

"  XLIV.  In  Rotimar  ia  the  difference  of  religious  creeds  and  confes- 
sions shall  not  be  alleged  against  any  person  as  a  ground  for  exclu- 
sion or  incapacity  in  matters  relating  to  the  enjoyment  of  civil  and 
political  rights,  admission  to  public  employments,  functions,  and 
honors,  or  the  exercise  of  the  various  professions  and  industries  in 
any  locality  whatsoever. 

"  The  freedom  and  outward  exercise  of  all  forms  of  worship  shall 
be  assured  to  all  persons  belonging  to  the  Roumanian  state,  as  well  as 
to  foreigners,  and  no  hindrance  shall  be  offered  either  to  the  hierar- 
chical organization  of  the  different  communions  or  to  their  relations 
with  their  spiritual  chiefs. 

"  The  subjects  and  citizens  of  all  the  powers,  traders  or  others, 
shall  be  treated  in  Roumania,  without  distinction  of  creed,  on  a  foot- 
ing of  perfect  equality." 

Whereas  the  Government  of  Roumania  accepted  the  terms  of  said  arti- 
cles of  said  treaty  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the  recognition  of  her 
independence ;  and 

Whereas  it  is  a  matter  of  certain  knowledge  that  the  Jews  of  Roumania. 
numbering  about  250,000,  have  been  the  barbarized  and  impoverished 
victims  of  Roumanian  discriminatory  legislation  and  of  Roumanian 
riots  and  massacres  for  a  period  of  more  than  30  years  in  violation 
of  both  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin :  Therefore 
be  it 

Resolved  by  1he  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled.  That  it  is  the  sense  of  the 
American  Congress  that  the  interests  of  civilization,  the  rights  of 
humanity,  the  principles  of  eternal  justice,  and  the  dignity  and  sanctity 
of  international  Jaw  demand  that  the  signatory  powers  of  the  treaty  of 
13001—12450  3 


21 17853 


Berlin   compel   Roumania   to   observe   the   stipulations  of  the   treaty   of 
Berlin  in  the  matter  of  the  treatment  of  the  Jews. 

Resoli-ed,  That  the  Secretary  of  State  be  requested  to  transmit  a  copy 
of  this  resolution  to  the  Governments  of  Great  Britain,  Germany, 
Austria,  Russia,  France,  Italy,  and  Turkey. 

Mr.  Speaker,  in  all  the  history  of  prejudice  the  persecution  of 
the  Jew  has  no  parallel.  Whether  born  of  human  wickedness 
or  divine  vengeance,  Jewish  persecution  is  the  strangest  of  all 
historical  phenomena.  When  and  where  it  originated  and  what 
have  been  its  intensifying  and  perpetuating  causes  are  still  sub- 
jects of  grave  doubt  and  speculative  debate. 

AVhen  we  coine  to  trace  the  history  of  prejudice  against  the 
Tew  and  to  seek  its  cause  we  are  led  by  many  labyrinthian 
paths  through  shadows  of  doubt  and  mystery  to  a  remote  an- 
tiquity. The  popular  notion  that  hatred  against  the  Jew  origi- 
nated in  the  crucifixion  of  the  Savior  is  without  basis  in 
reason  or  in  fact.  The  tragedy  of  Golgotha  might  have  been  a 
perpetuating,  an  intensifying  means,  but  it  was  not  the  origin — 
the  originating  principle. 

To  ascertain  the  real  beginning  of  Jewish  persecution  we  must 
antedate  the  Christian  era  by  several  centuries.  We  must  go 
back  to  the  days  of  ancient  Egypt.  We  learn  from  Genesis 
xliii,  32,  that  "  the  Egyptians  might  not.  eat  bread  with  the 
Hebrews:  for  that  it  is  an  abomination  unto  the  Egyptians." 
Social  discrimination  and  ostracism  seem  to  have  been  keen  and 
bitter  even  in  those  early  times.  And  in  the  Book  of  Esther, 
iii,  8,  we  find  an  epitome  of  much  of  the  complaint  made  by 
the  anti-Semites  and  Jew  baiters  of  modern  times :  "And  Hainan 
said  unto  the  king,  Ahasuerus,  there  is  a  certain  people  scat- 
tered abroad  and  dispersed  among  the  people  in  all  the  provinces 
of  thy  kingdom;  and  their  laws  are  diverse  from  all  people, 
neither  keep  they  the  king's  laws."  Then  Haman  added :  "  If  it 
please  the  king,  let  it  be  written  that  they  may  be  destroyed." 
Those  were  plain,  fierce  days  when  thoroughgoing  measures 
were  unhesitatingly  advised. 

How  thoroughly  the  old  Romans  hated  and  despised  the  Jews 
may  be  learned  from  early  Roman  writers.  Cicero,  Pro  Flacco, 
says:  "Their  barbarous  superstitions  must  be  fought."  "The 
Jews  are  nothing  but  a  superstitious  nation,"  says  Persius. 
"  Their  Sabbath  is  a  lugubrious  day,"  adds  Ovid.  "  They  wor- 
ship the  hog  and  the  ass,"  affirms  Petronius.  Of  course,  the 
charge  of  worshiping  the  hog  was  a  gratuitous  slander,  a  lie 
born  of  calumny  and  ignorance  and  perpetuated  by  hate  and 
superstition. 

In  the  annual  carnivals  of  ancient  Rome  the  Jews  were  com- 
pelled to  play  the  roles  of  clowns  and  buffoons,  were  forced  to 

13001—12456 


run  in  the  races  ridiculously  dressed,  and  were  compelled  to 
ride  through  the  streets  mounted  backward  on  donkeys,  holding 
the  animals'  tails  in  their  hands. 

When  the  night  of  the  Middle  Ages  fell  upon  the  human  race 
Jewish  persecution  often  assumed  forms  of  peculiar  malignity 
and  hate.  King  John  of  England  once  caused  one  of  his  Jewish 
subjects  to  be  cast  into  prison,  and  then  ordered  that  a  tooth 
should  be  drawn  from  his  mouth  each  day  until  he  had  sur- 
rendered his  money.  Seven  teeth  were  extracted,  one  on  each 
subsequent  day,  until,  on  the  eighth,  the  unhappy  and  unlucky 
man  ransomed  the  remainder  of  his  teeth  at  the  price  demanded, 
10,000  marks  of  silver. 

In  Toulouse,  France,  it  was  an  ancient  custom  on  certain 
holidays  to  slap  the  Jews  in  the  face  publicly  and  ostentatiously. 
All  the  Jews  in  town  were  compelled  to  assemble  in  the  public 
square.  The  Count  of  Toulouse  then  opened  the  miserable  pro- 
ceedings by  slapping  in  the  face  the  elder  of  the  Jewish  com- 
munity, and  his  subjects  followed  suit,  until  all  the  Jews  had 
been  slapped  and  thoroughly  humiliated. 

In  Germany  in  the  eighteenth  century,  even  so  grand  a  King 
as  Frederick  the  Great  persecuted  the  Jews  by  contemptible 
and  irritating  exactions.  He  permitted  only  a  certain  number 
of  them  to  marry  annually,  and  then  only  on  condition  that  they 
would  buy  $300^  worth  of  china  ware  from  his  royal  porcelain 
factory.  We  are  reminded  by  this  that  Frederick  was  not  only 
a  scholar  and  philosopher  under  the  tutelage  of  Voltaire,  but 
that  he  was  a  money-maker  as  well. 

But  time  does  not  permit  a  recital  of  all  the  laws  of  ancient 
and  medieval  ages,  whose  effect  was  to  embitter  the  life  and 
degrade  the  condition  of  the  Jew.  The  world  is  already  too 
sadly  familiar  with  the  history  of  his  woes.  The  references 
already  made  have  been  merely  academic  and  introductory. 

It  now  becomes  my  painful  duty  to  be  pointed  and  practical; 
to  discuss  and  denounce  the  brutal  and  savage  persecutions  of 
the  Jews  by  Roumania,  reputed  to  be  a  Christian  nation,  pre- 
tending to  be  civilized  and  enlightened,  while  violating  the  most 
sacred  and  solemn  treaty  obligations  to  her  sister  nations, 
while  trampling  under  foot  all  the  charities  of  the  heart,  all 
the  tenets  of  religion,  and  all  the  sentiments  of  humanity — and 
this  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century — more  than  a 
hundred  years  after  the  American  Revolution  established  the 
immortal  principle  that  all  just  powers  of  government  are  de- 
rived from  the  consent  of  the  governed ;  more  than  a  hundred 
years  after  the  French  Revolution  sent  the  cry  of  "  Liberty, 
equality,  fraternity,"  reverberating  around  the  globe;  and  more 

13001— 1245G 


6 

than  nineteen  centuries  after  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth  delivered 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  the  chart  of  the  soul  on  the  sea  of 
life,  whose  beatitudes  are  the  glorifications  of  the  virtues  of 
meekness,  mercy,  peace,  gentleness,  and  love. 

The  modern  Kingdom  of  Roumania  was  formed  by  the  union 
of  the  ancient  Principalities  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  Prov- 
inces situated  near  the  mouth  of  the  Danube,  having  an  area  of 
about  50,000  square  miles,  and  occupying  an  extent  of  territory 
some  350  miles  in  length  and  160  miles  in  breadth.  The  shape 
of  the  country  is  an  irregular  half-nioou,  touching  the  Black 
Sea  near  the  center  of  the  crescent. 

The  people  of  Roumania  proudly  boast  a  classic  antiquity  in 
their  supposed  descent  from  the  Romans  who  conquered  the 
ancient  Scythian  Kingdom  of  Dacia,  which  was  practically  the 
modern  territory  of  Rouinania. 

If  not  classic  in  history  the  country  of  Roumania  is  at  least 
classic  and  historic  in  soil,  for  the  legions  of  Rome,  the  hordes 
of  Attilla,  the  crusaders  of  Richard  and  Barbarossa,  and  the 
Cossacks  of  Peter  the  Great,  have  crossed  its  borders  and  tra- 
versed its  plains. 

The  language  of  Rouruaiiia  has  a  groundwork  of  Latin  and 
Slavonic,  with  a  superstructure  of  Turkish,  Greek,  and  French. 

The  social,  political,  religious,  and  intellectual  life  of  the 
people  is  a  strange,  weird  blending  of  the  cruder  forms  of  occi- 
dental and  oriental  civilizations. 

The  population  of  Roumania  in  1910  was  about  6,850,000. 
Fully  6,000,000  of  these  were  Rouinans  or  Vlachs ;  the  rest  were 
Jews,  Armenians,  gypsies,  Greeks,  Germans,  Turks,  Magyars, 
Servians,  and  Bulgarians. 

Of  the  total  population  of  Roumania  the  Jews  number  about 
250,000.  And  it  is  with  the  Jews  of  Roumauia,  in  their  relation- 
ship as  citizens  and  subjects  to  the  Government  of  Roumania, 
and  with  the  Government  of  Roumania  in  its  relationship  to  its 
Jewish  population,  under  binding  treaty  obligations  entered  into 
by  Roumania  with  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  that  I  shall 
hereafter  in  this  address  deal  particularly  and  pointedly. 

'I  desire  especially  to  discuss  the  persecution  of  the  Jews  by 
Roumania,  in  defiance  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin  of  July  13,  1878. 
.1  shall,  however,  in  the  first  place,  as  a  foundation  for  that 
discussion,  submit  for  your  consideration  a  classified  list  of  Rou- 
manian laws,  passed  during  the  half  century  preceding  the 
assembling  of  the  congress  of  Berlin,  which  were  intended  to 
discriminate  against  the  Jews.  This  list,  though  short,  may  be 
tedious  and  tiresome  to  study  and  contemplate,  but  it  will  be 
decidedly  illuminating  and  enlightening  when  we  come  to  con- 

13001—12456 


sider  the  motive  and  conduct  of  the  great  powers  in  forcing 
Rouniania,  through  treaty  stipulations,  to  accord  better  treat- 
ment to  her  Jewish  subjects.  The  following  is  a  resume,  with 
authorities  cited,  of  the  leading  Roumanian  legal  enactments 
against  the  Jews  between  the  years  1802  and  1ST6: 

1803.  Alexander  Monize  forbids  Jews  to  rent  farms.  ("  American  Jew- 
ish Year  Book,"  1901,  p.  48.) 

May  18,  1804.  Alexander  Monize,  of  Moldavia,  forbids  Jews  to  buy 
farm  products.  (Locb,  "  La  Situation  des  Israelites  en  Turquie,  en  Serbie 
et  en  Roumanie,"  p.  212,  Paris,  1877,  hereafter  cited  as  "  Loeb.") 

1817.  Code  Cahmachi,  section  1430,  forbids  Jews  of  Roumania  to  ac- 
quire real  property.  (Loeb,  p.  213.) 

By  1818.  Code  of  Jolm  Caradja,  of  Wallachia,  repeats  the  church  laws 
against  allowing  Jews  to  be  witnesses  against  Christians.  (Am.  Jew. 
Yearbook,  1901,  p.  50.) 

By  1819.  Code  of  Kallimachor  of  Moldavia  gives  civil  rights  to  Jews, 
who,  however,  may  not  own  land.  (Am.  Jew.  Yearbook,  1901,  p.  50.) 

1831.  Fundamental  law  of  Moldavia,  chapter  3,  section  94,  orders 
all  Jews  and  their  occupations  to  be  registered ;  Jews  not  of  proved 
usefulness  are  to  be  expelled ;  others  of  same  class  shall  not  be  allowed 
to  enter.  (Loeb,  p.  214.) 

March  11,  1839.  Tax  of  GO  piasters  per  annum  placed  on  Jews  of 
Moldavia.  (Loeb,  p.  215.) 

December  12,  1850.  No  Jew  allowed  to  enter  Roumania  unless  pos- 
sessed of  5,000  piasters  and  of  known  occupation.  (Loeb,  p.  216.) 

May  5,  1851.  Appointment  of  commission  of  vagabondage  at  Jassy  to 
determine  right  of  entry  of  foreign  Jews.  (Loeb,  p.  21G.) 

June  17,  1861.-  Circular  of  Roumanian  ministry  preventing  Jews  from 
being  innkeepers  in  rural  districts.  (Locb,  p.  217.) 

April  12,  18G4.  Communal  law  of  Roumania  permits  only  those  Jews 
to  be  naturalized  who  (1)  have  reached  the  grade  of  noncommissioned 
officers  in  the  army  (2)  or  have  passed  through  college  (3)  or  have  a 
recognized  foreign  degree  (4)  or  have  founded  a  factory.  (Loeb,  pp. 
107-108.) 

December  4,  1864.  Jews  excluded  from  being  advocates.  (Loeb, 
p.  124.) 

December  7,  1864.  Elementary  education  of  all  children  between  the 
ages  of  8  and  12.  (Sincerus,  "  Les  Juifs  en  Roumanie,"  hereafter  cited 
as  "  Sincerus.") 

April  14,  18GG.  Ghika,  Roumanian  minister  of  interior,  permits  Jews 
already  settled  in  rural  districts  to  keep  farms  till  leases  run  out,  but 
they  must  not  renew  them.  (Loeb,  p.  218.) 

March,  1868.  Law  submitted  to  chamber  preventing  Jews  from  hold- 
ing land,  settling  in  the  country,  selling  food,  keeping  inns,  holding 
public  office,  trading  without  special  permits.  Jews  already  settled  in 
rural  districts  were  to  be  driven  therefrom.  This  was  withdrawn  April 
5  in  fear  of  the  intervention  of  the  powers.  (Loeb,  pp.  1G9,  311-312.) 

June  23,  1868.  All  Roumanians  forced  to  serve  in  Army,  "but  not 
strangers"  (Loeb,  p.  109);  therefore  Jews  who  served  were  for  this 
purpose  regarded  as  Roumauians. 

December  27,  1868.  Jews  excluded  from  medical  profession  In  Rou- 
mania. (Loeb,  p.  124.)  Clause  omitted  in  decree  of  June,  1871. 

January  15,  1869.  Jews  not  allowed  to  be  tax  farmers  in  rural  com- 
munes.     (Loeb,   p.    112.) 
13001 — 12456 


8 

July,  1869.  Note  of  M.  Cogalniceano  to  French  consul  at  Bucharest 
refuses  to  consider  Jews  as  Roumanians.  (Loeb,  p.  102.) 

October,  1869.  Extra  tax  put  on  kosher  meat  at  Roman  and  Focsan. 
(Loeb.  p.  127.) 

October  25,  1869.  Jews  prevented  from  being  apothecaries  In  Rou- 
mania,  except  where  there  are  no  Roumanian  apothecaries.  (Loeb,  p. 
125;  Sincerus,  p.  102.) 

November  10.  1870.  Servian  Jews  obliged  to  serve  in  Army.  (Loeb, 
p.  57.) 

February  15,  1872.  All  dealers  in  tobacco  in  Roumania  must  be 
"Roumanians."  (Loeb,  p.  120.) 

April  1,  1873.  Law  forbidding  Jews  to  sell  spirituous  liquors  in  rural 
districts.  (Loeb,  p.  188.)  A  license  may  be  given  only  to  an  elector. 
(Sincerus,  p.  19.) 

These  enactments  show  the  legal  disabilities  of  the  Jews.  But 
they  do  not  tell  the  full  story  of  shame  and  humiliation  of  a  long- 
suffering  and  wretched  people.  Written  in  the  calm  and  digni- 
fied phraseology  of  the  law  they  can  not  and  do  not  recount  the 
bloody  details  of  riot  and  massacre,  whose  occurrence  was  the 
disgrace  of  civilization  and  whose  horrors  compose  the  blackest 
chapters  of  Roumanian  history.  I  will  not  harrow  your  feelings 
with  a  recital  of  the  details.  I  shall  content  myself  with  a 
simple  and  dispassionate  discussion  of  legal  rights  and  treaty 
obligations  in  the  matter  of  Roumania  and  the  Jews. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  the  War  of  the  Crimea  that  the  great 
Governments  of  Europe  first  gave  serious  attention  to  the  op- 
pressions of  the  Jews  by  the  rulers  of  the  principalities  of 
Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  the  Provinces  from  which  the  kingdom 
of  Roumauia  was  afterwards  formed.  At  that  time  the  first 
decisive  effort  was  made  to  relieve  the  legal  disabilities  of  the 
Jews. 

The  following  articles  of  the  protocol  of  the  conference  of 
Constantinople  of  the  llth  of  February,  1856,  imposed,  it  must 
be  admitted,  rather  exacting  terms  upon  Moldavia  and  Wal- 
lachia : 

XIII.  All  the  religions  and  those  who  profess  them  shall  enjoy  equal 
liberty  and  equal  protection  in  the  two  Principalities. 

XV.  Foreigners  may  possess  landed  property   in  Moldavia  and   Wal- 
lachia on  discharging  the  same  liabilities  as  natives  and  on  submitting 
to  the  laws. 

XVI.  All   Moldavians   and    Wallachians,   without   exception,   shall    be 
admissible  to  public;  employments. 

XVIII.  All  classes  of  the  population,  without  any  distinction  of  birth 
or  religion,  shall  enjoy  equality  of  civil  rights  and  particularly  of  the 
right  of  property  in  every  shape,  but  the  exercise  of  political  rights  shall 
be  suspended  in  the  case  of  natives  placed  under  a  foreign  protection. 

The  language  of  these  articles  was  an  emphatic  and  unequivo- 
cal' declaration  in  favor  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  for  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Roumauia.  A  complete  realization  of  ttoe  protec- 

13001—12456 


9 

tion  afforded  by  these  articles  would  have  been  all  that  the  Jews 
could  reasonably  have  asked.  But  such  a  thing  was  not  to  be. 
No  such  blessing  was  in  store  for  thorn.  The  reigning  Prince  of 
Moldavia,  Gregory  Ghika,  began  at  once  a  course  of  subterfuge 
and  evasion  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  abortive  the  intentions 
and  efforts  of  the  powers.  Pie  contended  that  a  strict  applica- 
tion of  the  provisions  of  these  articles  was  impracticable,  if  not 
impossible,  on  account  of  the  great  number  of  unassimilated 
Jews  in  the  Principalities;  and  two  years  later  he  presented  a 
memorial  to  the  congress  of  Paris  asking  that  the  realization  of 
the  principle  embodied  in  the  articles  of  the  protocol  of  the  con- 
ference of  Constantinople,  which  he  admitted  to  be  excellent 
within  itself,  should  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  local  Gov- 
ernment, which  alone,  he  contended,  knew  how  to  apply  the 
principle.  His  arguments  were  plausible,  if  not  sound  and 
righteous,  and  at  h;st,  out  of  deference  to  the  wishes  and  pledges 
of  Ghika,  the  powers  modified  their  intentions  by  the  adoption 
of  Article  XLVI  of  the  convention  of  Paris,  which  runs  as 
follows : 

All  Moldavians  and  Wallachians  shall  be  equal  in  the  eye  of  the  law 
and  with  regard  to  taxation,  and  shall  be  equally  admissible  to  public 
employments  in  both  principalities. 

Their  individual  liberty  shall  be  guaranteed.  No  one  can  be  detained 
or  prosecuted  but  in  conformity  with  the  law.  No  one  can  be  deprived 
of  his  property  unless  legally  for  causes  of  public  interest  and  on 
payment  of  indemnification. 

Moldavians  and  Wallachians  of  all  Christian  confessions  shall  equally 
enjoy  political  rights.  The  enjoyment  of  these  rights  may  be  extended 
to  other  religions  by  legislative  arrangements. 

Indeed  the  pledge  of  Ghika  and  the  expectations  of  the 
powers  based  upon  this  pledge  were  that  the  Jews  would  be 
gradually  enfranchised  and  emancipated  politically  by  legisla- 
tive arrangements.  But  Roumanian  legislation  during  the  past 
50  years  shows  how  badly  founded  were  those  expectations  and 
how  complete  has  been  the  evasion  of  that  pledge. 

Instead  of  relieving  their  legal  disabilities,  the  efforts  of  the 
powers  to  help  the  Jews  through  stipulations  of  the  conventions 
of  Constantinople  and  Paris  proved  to  be  a  positive  misfortune. 
"So  far,"  says  a  modern  writer,  "from  ameliorating  the  con- 
dition of  the  Jews,  the  convention  of  Paris  by  a  regrettable  ac- 
cident led  to  more  burdensome  disabilities  and  a  more  barbarous 
persecution  than  they  had  ever  before  endured.  Under  the  old 
organic  laws,  by  which  the  principalities  were  governed  pre- 
viously to  1859,  the  people  had  no  effective  voice  in  the  govern- 
ment. Hence  there  was  little  cause  for  jealousy  between 
Christians  and  Jews,  and  with  the  exception  of  occasional  ex- 
13001— 1243G 2 


10 

plosions  of  religious  fanaticism,  they  lived  together  in  harmony. 
The  new  order  of  things  established  in  1858  destroyed  this  equal- 
ity. It  gave  to  the  Christian  population  a  monopoly  of  political 
power  which  they  were  not  slow  to  use  against  their  trade  rivals 
among  the  unenfranchised  Jews.  This  unfortunate  incidence  of 
the  convention  of  Paris  was  aggravated  by  the  new  electoral 
law  under  which  a  preponderating  franchise  was  reserved  for 
the  mercantile  classes,  with  whom  the  Jews,  being  chiefly  of 
the  same  classes,  most  directly  competed.  The  result  was  that 
not  only  was  the  fulfillment  of  Article  XLVI  of  the  convention 
of  Paris  rendered  impossible,  but  the  whole  influence  of  the 
mercantile  electorate  was  employed  to  obtain  the  imposition 
of  fresh  disabilities  upon  the  Jews  and  to  inflame  the  reli- 
gious and  racial  prejudices  of  the  populace  against  them.  In- 
stead of  gradually  emancipating  them  in  accordance  with  the 
provisions  of  the  convention  of  Paris,  even  their  status  as 
'  non-Christian  Moldo-Wallachs,'  acknowledged  in  that  instru- 
ment, was  denied  them.  They  were  assimilated  by  the  civil 
code  of  1SG4  to  aliens,  though  admitted  by  the  code  to  be  '  in- 
digenes,' and  were  made  dependent  on  a  difficult  and  tedious 
process  of  naturalization  for  their  acquisition  of  political  rights 
(Arts.  VIII,  IX,  and  XVI).  Even  the  privilege  was  withdrawn 
from  them  by  the  constitution  of  I860,  which  declared  (Art. 
VII)  '  that  only  Christians  may  obtain  naturalization-'  Conse- 
quently Article  XLVI  of  the  convention  of  Paris  remained  a 
dead  letter." 

In  the  meantime  the  Jews  of  Roumauia  were  more  bitterly 
oppressed  than  ever.  New  laws  discriminating  against  them 
were  passed ;  riots  and  massacres  were  renewed  with  greater 
fury.  They  were  languishing  in  a  bondage  worse  than  that 
endured  by  their  fathers  in  ancient  Egypt  when  hope  was  re- 
vived again  among  them  by  the  adoption  of  Article  XLIV  of  the 
treaty  of  Berlin  of  July  13,  1878. 

The  Berlin  congress  of  1878  was  a  gathering  at  the  German 
national  capital  of  the  brainiest  and  most  brilliant  statesmen 
of  Europe.  The  purpose  of  the  congress  was  to  settle  the  ques- 
tions growing  out  of  the  Russo-Turkish  war  of  1877-78. 

On  the  24th  of  April,  1877,  Russia  declared  war  against  Tur- 
key with  the  avowed  object  of  protecting  the  Christian  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Ottoman  Empire.  Bulgaria,  Roumauia,  Servia,  and 
Montenegro  were  either  tacitly  or  openly  the  allies  of  the  Czar. 
After  varying  successes  the  fortunes  of  war  finally  favored  the 
Russians,  and  the  fall  of  Plevna  opened  the  way  to  Constanti- 
nople. The  Turks  sued  for  peace,  and  on  March  3,  1878,  the 
treaty  of  San  Stefano  was  signed.  Some  of  the  terms  of  this 

13001— 1245G 


11 

treaty  were  displeasing  to  several  of  the  Governments  of  Europe. 
Austria  and  England  were  decidedly  dissatisfied.  The  political 
changes  made  and  the  territorial  readjustments  provided  for  in 
the  treaty,  together  with  the  exaction  of  1,400,000,000  rubles 
war  indemnity,  which  promised  to  cripple  most  seriously  the  re- 
sources of  the  Turkish  Empire  for  years  to  come,  practically 
made  the  Czar  permanent  arbiter  of  Balkan  affairs.  To  avert 
such  a  catastrophe  had  been  the  traditional  policy  of  Austria, 
and  to  prevent  a  result  so  disastrous  to  her  interests  England 
had  waged  the  war  of  the  Crimea. 

Assuming  the  initiative  in  the  matter  Count  Andrassy,  in  the 
name  of  the  Austrian  Government,  dispatched  a  circular  note  to 
the  signatory  powers  of  the  treaty  of  Paris  of  1856  and  the  Lon- 
don protocol  of  1ST1  suggesting  an  international  congress  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  "  the  agreement  of  Europe  on  the  modi- 
fications which  it  might  become  necessary  to  introduce  into  the 
above-mentioned  treaties,"  in  view  of  the  provisions  of  the 
treaty  of  San  Stefauo.  The  suggestion  of  Count  Andrassy  met 
with  a  ready  response.  Germany  was  especially  willing  to  co- 
operate with  England  and  with  Austria,  her  ally,  in  the  as- 
sembling of  a  congress  of  which  her  own  great  statesman, 
Bismarck,  was  sure  to  be  the  dominating  figure.  Russia  was 
naturally  displeased  with  the  turn  events  had  taken.  She 
felt  intuitively  that  she  would  lose  all  that  she  had  gained  in  the 
war  with  Turkey  if  she  consented  to  the  revision  of  the  articles 
of  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano  by  an  international  conference 
dominated  by  her  enemies. 

But  she  was  powerless  to  resist.  She  demanded,  however,  as 
a  condition  of  giving  her  consent  to  the  assembling  of  the  pro- 
posed congress  and  of  her  participation  in  its  proceedings,  that 
the  scope  of  its  powers  be  limited  by  the  exclusion  of  certain 
clauses  of  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano  from  its  consideration. 
The  reply  of  Disraeli,  on  behalf  of  England,  to  this  demand 
was  to  mobolize  the  militia  and  to  bring  Indian  troops  to  the 
Mediterranean.  Finding  that  the  diplomatic  support  which  she 
had  hoped  to  receive  from  Bismarck  had  failed  her,  she  took  the 
hint,  and  finally  consented  to  submit  the  whole  question  of  the 
Balkan  situation  to  the  determinations  of  a  new  international 
conference. 

On  the  3d  of  June,  1S78,  Count  Miinster,  in  the  name  of  the 
German  Emperor,  invited  the  delegates  of  the  signatory  powers 
of  the  treaty  of  Paris  of  1S5G  to  assemble  at  Berlin.  The  invi- 
tation was  accepted.  Great  Britain  was  represented  by  Lord 
Beaconsfleld,  Lord  Salisbury,  and  Lord  Russell ;  Germany  by 
Prince  Bismarck,  Prince  Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst,  and  Baron 
13001—12456 


12 

von  Billow;  Austria  by  Count  Andrassy,  Baron  Karolyi,  and 
Baron  von  Hayinerle ;  Italy  by  Count  Corti  and  Count  Launay ; 
France  by  William  H.  Waddington,  Felix  Desprez,  and  Le 
Coinpte  de  Saint-Valliers ;  Russia  by  her  imperial  chancellor, 
Prince  Gorchakov,  Count  Shuvalov,  and  Paul  D'Oubril;  Turkey 
by  Alexander  Pasha,  Ali  Pasha,  and  Sadullah  Bey. 

These  distinguished  representatives  of  the  leading  nations  of 
the  world — lords,  princes,  barons,  counts,  ambassadors,  and 
prime  ministers — men  renowned  in  statesmanship,  diplomacy, 
law,  and  letters,  convened,  and  organized  the  Congress  of  Ber- 
lin, on  the  13th  day  of  June,  1878,  under  the  presidency  of 
Prince  Bismarck. 

On  the  13th  of  July,  a  month  after  the  assembling  of  the  con- 
gress, the  treaty  of  Berlin  was  signed.  It  consists  of  64  articles. 

Two  great  purposes  of  the  delegates  of  the  congress  are  re- 
vealed in  the  terms  of  the  treaty : 

(1)  The  reconstruction,  upon  an  equitable  basis,  of  the  map 
of  southeastern  Europe; 

(2)  The  establishment  of  the  independence  of  certain  Balkan 
States  upon  a  foundation  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

The  first  great  purpose  was  achieved,  in  the  main,  by  certain 
territorial  changes.  Bulgaria  was  divided  into  two  parts — Bul- 
garia proper  and  eastern  Rumelia.  Parts  of  Armenia  were  given 
to  Russia  and  Persia.  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  were  transferred 
to  Austria,  and  Bessarabia  was  restored  to  Russia. 

The  second  great  purpose  was  accomplished  by  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  independence  of  Rouinania,  Servia,  and  Montenegro 
under  terms  of  guaranty  by  them  of  civil  and  religious  liberty 
to  all  the  inhabitants  of  their  territories. 

In  the  archives  of  history  are  few  more  important  documents 
than  the  treaty  of  Berlin.  It  readjusted  the  boundaries  of  king- 
doms and  empires.  It  proclaimed  the  independence  of  states  and 
the  freedom  of  races.  It  was,  above  all,  a  grand  proclamation 
of  religious  emancipation. 

The  conditions  of  life  among  the  Jews  of  Roumania  were  far 
more  pitiable  and  their  political  situation  was  infinitely  worse 
when  the  Berlin  Congress  convened  in  1878  than  they  had  been 
20  years  before  when  the  conferences  of  Constantinople  and 
Paris  met.  In  1858  the  legal  status  of  the  Jews  was  admitted 
to  be  that  of  unenfranchised  Roumanians.  In  1878  they  had 
been  declared  to  be  outcasts  and  aliens,  and  were  cruelly  treated 
as  such.  A  succession  of  barbarous  persecutions,  culminating 
in  riots  and  massacres  had  reduced  them  to  such  a  state  of 
misery  and  degradation  that  the  pity  of  mankind  was  excited 
and  the  indignation  of  the  civilized  world  found  vigorous  ex- 
13001—12456 


13 

pression  in  official  protests  to  the  great  powers  of  Europe. 
This  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  Rouuinnin  asked  the  dele- 
gates to  the  Congress  of  Berlin  to  recognize  her  independence  as 
a  kingdom. 

The  representatives  of  the  powers  knew  well  the  cunning 
character  of  Roumanian  statesmanship.  They  remembered  dis- 
tinctly the  subterfuge  and  chicanery  employed  to  evade  the 
pledges  given  at  the  time  of  the  conferences  of  Constantinople 
and  Paris.  They  recalled  that  discretion  had  been  allowed  and 
that  it  had  been  abused  in  the  matter  of  the  promise  of  Ghika 
to  emancipate  the  Jews  gradually  by  legislative  enactment.  ' 
They  now  resolved  to  withdraw  all  discretion  from  the  Govern- 
ment of  Bucharest  in  the  matter  of  the  emancipation  of  its 
non-Christian  subjects.  And  to  the  demand  of  Koumauia  that 
her  independence  be  recognized  the  powers  responded  with 
Articles  XLIII  and  XLIV  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin  of  July  13, 
1878,  which  imposed  as  a  condition  of  recognition  the  absolute 
equality  of  all  religious  creeds  and  confessions  in  the  Kingdom. 
The  following  is  the  text  of  those  articles : 

XLIII.  The  high  contracting  parties  recognize  the  independence  of 
Rournania,  subject  to  the  conditions  set  forth  in  the  two  following 
articles : 

XLIV.  In  Rou-nania  the  difference  of  religious  creeds  and  confessions 
shall  not  be  alleged  against  any  person  as  a  ground  for  exclusion  or 
incapacity  in  matters  relating  to  the  enjoyment  of  civil  and  political 
rights,  admission  to  puhlic  employments,  functions,  and  honors,  or  the 
exercise  of  the  various  professions  and  industries  in  any  locality  what- 
soever. 

The  freedom  and  outward  exercise  of  all  forms  of  worship  shall  be 
assured  to  all  persons  belonging  to  the  Roumanian  State,  as  well  as 
to  foreigners,  and  no  hindrance  shall  be  offered  either  to  the  hier- 
archical organization  of  the  different  communions  or  to  their  relations 
with  their  spiritual  chiefs. 

The  subjects  and  citizens  of  all  the  powers,  traders  or  others,  shall 
be  treated  in  Roumania  without  distinction  of  creed  on  a  footing  of 
perfect  equality. 

Such  were  the  terms  offered  by  the  Congress  of  Berlin  to 
Roumania  as  a  condition  of  the  recognition  of  her  independence. 

Strangely  and  unfortuutaely  the  powers  were  once  again  per- 
suaded to  agree  to  a  compromise.  "  That  only  Christians  may 
obtain  naturalization"  was  a  provision  of  Article  VII  of  the 
Roumanian  constitution  of  1866.  Acting  upon  the  arbitrary 
and  illegal  assumption  that  all  Jews  were  aliens,  Roumania 
contended  that  the  only  disability  imposed  upon  them  was  ex- 
clusion from  naturalization  under  this  article,  and  she  conse- 
quently proposed  to  revise  Article  VII  of  her  constitution  as  a 
satisfaction  of  Article  XLIV  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin.  The 
13001— 1245C 


14 

offer  of  Roumania,  in  other  words,  was  to  open  the  door  of 
naturalization  to  the  Jews,  the  inference  then  being,  of  course, 
that  all  other  blessings  would  flow  from  citizenship. 

The  powers  pointed  out  in  reply  that  by  Uie  Roumanian 
naturalization  law  the  "  equality  of  citizen "  could  only  be 
obtained  after  a  probation  of  10  years,  and  then  by  individual 
act  of  Parliament,  which  was  liable  to  be  defeated  by  the 
Chambers;  and  the  offer  of  compromise  was  consequently 
declined. 

Rournania  then  changed  her  ground  by  deserting  her  legal 
position  and  urging  a  plea  of  expediency.  She  insisted  that  if 
the  Jews  were  not  aliens  in  law  they  were  aliens  in  fact,  "  not 
only  by  their  religion,  but  by  language,  custom,  manners,  as- 
pirations— in  a  word,  by  all  that  constitutes  distinctive  char- 
acter in  a  man  as  a  member  of  society."  She  contended,  further, 
that  the  Jews  were  "  illiterate  and  fanatical,"  and  that  they 
were  "  peculiarly  accessible  to  foreign  influences,  and  that, 
owing  to  their  large  numbers,  they  were  calculated  to  strike  a 
fatal  blow  at  the  homogeneity  of  the  Roumanian  national 
character."  And  as  a  final  plea  it  was  urged  that  "  the  nation 
was  strongly  opposed  to  an  immediate  and  wholesale  emanci- 
pation, and  that  if  the  powers  insisted  upon  it  the  effect  would 
be  that  the  cause  of  religious  liberty  in  Roumania  would  be  en- 
dangered rather  than  promoted." 

The  powers  seem  to  have  been  somewhat  impressed  by  the 
force  of  these  contentions,  but.  nevertheless,  they  still  declined 
to  admit  that  a  revision  of  Article  VII  of  the  Roumanian  consti- 
tution would,  in  full  measure,  meet  the  requirements  of  Article 
XLIV  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin. 

It  was  then  that  Roumania,  fearing  the  shipwreck  of  her 
hopes  to  become  an  independent  nation,  gave  the  most  solemn 
assurances  that  if  the  proposed  solution  was  accepted,  it  would 
be  made  to  apply  at  once  to  all  assimilated  Jews,  and  tuat  the 
naturalization  of  unassimilated  Jews  would  be  provided  for  and 
accomplished  within  a  reasonable  time. 

Sir  William  White  was  told  by  Boeresco,  the  Roumanian  for- 
eign minister,  "  that  if  the  present  bill  could  only  become  a 
law,  a  more  complete  measure  of  emancipation  would  be  ac- 
cepted by  the  electorate  later  on  when  the  present  agitations 
had  subsided." 

But  more  specific  and  emphatic  than  this  were  the  promises 

contained  in  a  circular  dispatch  sent  out  by  Boeresco  under 

date  of  August  31,  1879,  a  document  that  he  himself  described 

as  "  a  sort  of  expose  des  motifs  of  the  measure  we  are  about 

13001—12456 


15 

to  submit  to  the  Chambers."     The  essential  passages  of  this 
dispatch  are  the  following: 

Will  the  Jews  who  do  not  immediately  obtain  naturalization  remain 
foreigners?  No;  they  will  remain  what  they  always  have  been — Rou- 
manian. But  in  the  measure  that  they  identify  themselves  with  the 
population  of  the  country,  in  the  measure  that  by  schools  and  other 
means  of  preparation  they  become  enlightened  men  and  attached  to  the 
country,  they  will  be  able  to  obtain  and  exercise  political  rights. 
******* 

There  will  be  three  categories  of  Jews — foreigners,  Roumanian  sub- 
jects, and  citizens.  Hitherto  both  the  foreign  and  native  Jews  have 
been  the  objects  of  certain  prohibitions,  but  in  their  quality  of  Jew 
alone.  From  the  moment  that  article  7  of  the  constitution  shall  be 
suppressed  all  these  prohibitions  will  disappear,  and  no  distinction  will 
be  made  between  the  foreign  Jew  and  the  foreign  Christian.  It  will  be 
the  same  with  the  Jews  who  are  Roumanian  subjects.  Hitherto  certain 
civil  rights  have  been  denied  them.  Thus  they  could  not  be  advocates, 
professors,  State  engineers;  they  could  not  serve  on  juries,  etc.  Under 
the  new  regime  they  will  have,  in  the  first  place,  all  the  rights  enjoyed 
by  foreigners  in  general.  Then,  as  Roumanian  subjects  they  will  have 
(he  right  of  serving  in  the  army  and  the  national  guard,  the  right  of 
acquiring  real  estate,  the  right  to  be  advocates,  to  serve  on  juries,  to 
exercise  freely  every  -profession  and  every  trade ;  they  will,  in  short, 
have  the  same  civil  rights  as  Roumanians  and  will  be  protected  in  the 
same  way  by  the  same  law  and  by  the  authorities.  (Official  documents 
extracted  from  the  diplomatic  correspondence  of  2/14  September,  1878  ; 
17/20  July,  1880.  Bucharest,  1880,  pp.  121-123.) 

The  Governments  of  Austria  and  Italy  were  somewhat  in- 
clined to  accept  these  assurances,  but  England,  France,  and  Ger- 
many still  demanded  that  legislative  guaranties  be  given  for  the 
faithful  observance  of  the  treaty  and  that  this  be  done  within  a 
reasonable  time,  if  not  immediately. 

The  negotiations  between  Boeresco  and  the  powers  were  still 
in  progress  when  the  Roumanian  Parliament  passed  an  act  re- 
vising Article  VII  of  the  constitution,  which  was  soon  after- 
wards promulgated  by  the  Prince  in  the  following  terms : 

In  room  of  Article  VII,  which  is  revised,  the  following  shall  be  placed : 

"ART.  VII.  The  difference  of  religious  creeds  and  confessions  does  not 
constitute  in  Roumania  an  obstacle  to  the  acquirement  of  civil  and 
political  rights  and  their  exercise. 

"  1.  Every  foreigner,  without  distinction  of  creed,  whether  enjoying 
any  foreign  protection  or  not,,  cau  acquire  naturalization  under  the  fol- 
lowing conditions : 

"(a)  By  addressing  to  the  Government  an  application  for  naturaliza- 
tion, in  which  must  be  declared  the  capital  he  possesses,  his  profession, 
and  his  wish  to  establish  his  domicile  in  Roumania. 

"(b)  By  residing  in  the  country  for  10  years  after  having  made  this 
application  and  by  proving  by  his  acts  that  he  is  useful  to  the  country. 

"  2.  The  following  may  be  exempted  from  this  delay  of  residence  (10 
years)  : 

"(a)   All  who  shall  have  introduced  into  the  country  industries,  use- 
ful inventions,  or  distinguished  talents,  or  who  shall  have  founded  large 
commercial  or  industrial  establishments. 
13001—12456 


16 

'"(b)  All  who  have  been  born  and  educated  in  Roumania  of  parents 
domiciled  in  the  country  and  have,  neither  in  their  own  case  nor  that 
of  their  parents,  at  any  time  been  in  the  enjoyment  of  any  foreign  pro- 
tection. 

"(c)  All  who  have  served  with  the  colors  during  the  war  of  independ- 
ence, and  these  can  be  naturalized  collectively  on  the  proposition  of 
the  Government  by  a  single  law,  without  further  formalities. 

"  3.  Naturalization  can  only  be  granted  by  a  law,  and  individually. 

"  4.  A  special  law  will  determine  the  manner  in  which  foreigners  can 
establish  their  domicile  on  Roumanian  territory. 

"  5.  Roumanian  and  naturalized  Roumanian  citizens  can  alone  acquire 
rural  estates  in  Roumania. 

"  Rights  acquired  up  to  the  present  time  are  respected." 

The  international  conventions  existing  at  present  remain  in  force, 
with  all  their  clauses  and  for  the  term  mentioned  therein. 

This  decisive  action  of  the  Parliament  of  Bucharest,  bold  in 
design  and  prompt  in  execution,  seems  to  have  changed  the  no- 
tions of  the  powers,  for  they  soon  afterwards  consented,  though 
reluctantly,  to  the  Roumanian  solution.  But  before  giving  their 
final  consent  they  required  the  Roumanian  Government  to  make 
a  formal  declaration  of  acceptance  of  the  principle  of  Article 
XLIV  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin  and  of  its  resolution  to  act  upon  it 
"loyally  and  sincerely."'  The  required  obligation  was  expressed 
in  the  following  note : 

Article  7  of  the  Roumanian  constitution,  sanctioning  the  principle  of 
article  44  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin,  has  opened  to  the  Jews  access  to  citi- 
zenship and  has  abrogated  all  existing  laws.  That  principle  will  con- 
tinue to  be  observed  sincerely  and  loyally.  The  organic  powers  will  de- 
vote themselves  to  assuring  its  respect  and  will  pursue  its  application 
with  the  view  of  securing  a  more  complete  assimilation  of  the  Jews. 
*  Meanwhile  ail  Jews  residing  in  the  country  will  possess,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  private  civil  law,  an  assured  juridical  position,  and 
will  have  no  cause  to  fear  arbitrary  administrative  measures  or  excep- 
tional laws  aimed  at  confessions  or  religions.  (Statement  by  Signor 
Cairoli  in  the  Italian  Parliament,  Dee.  9,  1879.) 

Upon  the  receipt  of  this  note  Austria  and  Italy  signified  their 
•willingness  to  recognize  the  independence  of  the  new  Kingdom. 

After  considerable  hesitation  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Ger- 
many did  the  same,  but  not  before  they  had  made  it  perfectly 
clear  to  the  Roumanian  Government  that  they  were  well  aware 
that  the  conditions  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin  had  not  been  fulfilled 
and  that  they  relied  upon  the  solemn  pledges  of  the  principali- 
ties "to -observe  them  in  the  spirit  and  to  execute  them  gradu- 
ally in  the  letter." 

That  there  might  be  a  clear  understanding  of  the  situation 
the  three  last-mentioned  powers  presented  an  identic  note  to 
M.  Boeresco  on  the  20th  of  February,  1880.  The  following  are 
the  essential  paragraphs  of  that  note: 

Her  Majesty's  Government   can  not  consider  the  new  constitutional 
provisions  which  have  brought  to  their  recognizance — and  particularly 
13001 — 12456 


17 

those  by  which  persons  belonging  to  a  nonchrfstian  creed  domiciled 
In  Roumania,  and  not  belonging  to  any-  foreign  nationality,  are  required 
to  submit  to  the  formalities  of  individual  naturalization — as  being  a 
complete  fulfillment  of  the  views  of  the  powers  signatories  of  the 
treaty  of  Berlin. 

Trusting,  however,  to  the  determination  of  the  prince's  Government 
to  approximate  more  and  more  in  the  execution  of  these  provisions,  to 
the  liberal  intentions  entertained  by  the  powers,  and  taking  note  of  the 
positive  assurances  to  that  effect  which  have  been  conveyed  to  them, 
the  Government  of  her  Britannic  Majesty  being  desirous  of  giving  to 
the  Roumanian  Nation  a  proof  of  their  friendly  sentiments,  have  de- 
cided to  recognize  the  principality  of  Roumania  as  an  independent 
State.  Iler  Majesty's  Government  consequently  declares  themselves 
ready  to  enter  into  regular  diplomatic  relations  with  the  prince's  Gov- 
ernment. 

Such  was  the  result  of  the  diplomatic  negotiations  of  nearly 
two  years  in  which  the  great  powers  of  Europe  had  again  been 
cajoled  and  hoodwinked  by  a  contemptible  little  Balkan  prin- 
cipality. Rournauia  had  secured  the  recognition  of  her  sov- 
ereignty and,  in  return,  had  given  promises  and  pledges  which 
the  developments  of  the  last  30  years  show  she  never  intended 
to  fulfill. 

The  congress  of  Berlin  of  1S78  accomplished  nothing  more  in 
fact  than  did  the  convention  of  Paris  of  1858.  The  illusory 
pledges  of  Prince  Gregory  Ghika  remained  unfulfilled  for  20 
years.  The  promises  of  the  Government  of  King  Charles  have 
been  equally  false  and  hypocritical,  for  more  than  three  decades 
have  passed  and  yet  nothing  has  been  done  to  meet  the  just 
expectations  of  the  powers.  A  new  generation  of  Roumanian 
Jews  have  been  born  in  the  land,  and  yet  they  are  as  far  from 
emancipation  as  were  their  fathers.  The  night  of  oppression 
and  persecution  still  hovers  over  them  and  the  day  of  freedom 
and  regeneration  still  seems  far  away.  They  are  still  held  to 
be  aliens  and  outcasts  in  the  laud  of  their  birth;  naturalization 
is  still  practically  inaccessible  to  them ;  and  the  sufferings  of 
persecution  are  still  as  great  and  painful  as  ever. 

Roumanian  statesmanship  triumphed  in  the  matter  of  the 
compromise  of  1SSO,  not  by  honest  methods  of  skillful  diplomacy, 
but  by  craft  and  cunning  and  through  the  negligence  of  the  pow- 
ers themselves. 

It  was  a  regrettable  mistake  that  the  Governments  of  Europe 
should  have  overlooked  two  fatal  defects  in  the  compromise. 
In  the  first  place  they  should  by  all  means  have  forced  from 
the  Roumanian  Parliaiueat  a  legislative  acknowledgment  that 
Jews  "  belonging  to  no  other  nationality  and  enjoying  no  for- 
eign protection  were  Roumanian  nationals  in  the  sense  of  article 
46  of  the  convention  of  Paris  and  of  the  admission  of  M.  Boer- 
esco  in  his  dispatch  of  August  31,  1879." 
13001—12456 


18 

Again  the  Roumanian  Parliament  consists  of  two  chambers. 
All  naturalization  bills  arc  individual  and  must  pass  each  cham- 
ber by  a  two-thirds  majority.  Paragraph  3  of  the  revised 
Article  VII  of  the  constitution  left  Jewish  petitions  for  naturali- 
zation at  the  absolute  mercy  of  the  Parliament.  This  was  the 
second  fatal  defect  of  the  compromise  which  should  not  have 
been  overlooked  by  the  powers. 

These  defects  are  all  the  more  to  be  lamented  because  they 
furnish  loopholes  of  escape  to  Ronmania  in  the  matter  of  keeping 
her  naturalization  pledges  under  the  treaty.  They  gave  ground 
for  the  practice  of  rank  hypocrisy,  and  at  the  same  time  for  a 
plea  of  seeming  justification  in  terms  of  law. 

The  unfortunate  result  has  been  that  in  the  matter  of  natu- 
ralization, so  far  from  keeping  her  pledges,  Roumania  has  almost 
completely  ignored  them,  for  the  Roumanian  chambers  have  in 
nearly  every  case  refused  to  pass  bills  intended  to  confer  citizen- 
ship upon  the  Jews.  Since  18SO,  the  date  of  the  recognition  of 
the  new  Kingdom,  only  170  Jews  have  been  naturalized  out  of  a 
total  population  of  100,000  adult  males,  the  greater  part  of 
whom  are  natives,  and  many  thousands  of  whom  have  bravely 
and  patriotically  performed  military  service  for  the  Roumanian 
fatherland. 

When  arraigned  at  the  bar  of  the  nations  and  charged  with 
bad  faith  in  the  matter  of  broken  pledges,  the  defense  of  Rou- 
mania is  at  once  astonishingly  simple  and  amazingly  cynical. 
She  simply  revives  her  ancient  argument  that  the  Jews  are  now 
and  have  always  been  strangers  and  aliens  in  the  land,  and 
that  the  treaties  of  1S5S  and  1878,  under  strict  interpretation, 
did  not  alter  their  status.  When  pointed  to  the  formal  and 
categorical  pledges  of  1880,  and  the  admission  of  M.  Boeresco  in 
1879,  which  directly  contradicted  and  repudiated  her  conten- 
tions in  this  regard,  and,  moreover,  when  reminded  that  Great 
Britain,  Franca,  and  Germany  had  recognized  her  independence 
only  after  she  had  specifically  and  emphatically  renounced  such 
a  theory,  she  simply  points  to  the  equivocal  revision  of  Article 
VII  of  her  constitution,  which  Europe  had  accepted  under  pres- 
sure and  protest,  and  declares  that  she  is  bound  by  that  alone. 

Strange  to  say,  no  attempt  is  ever  made  by  Roumania  to  con- 
ceal the  hypocrisy  or  to  hide  the  bad  faith  of  her  astonishing 
defense.  Indeed,  eminent  writers  of  Roumania  have  frequently 
boasted  of  the  trick  which  was  successfully  played  on  Europe. 
One  of  these,  M.  Suliotis,  writes  in  this  manner : 

The  treaty  of  Berlin  was  thought  to  work  wonders  in  favor  of  the 
strangers,  but  Roumania  has  been  wise  enough  to  escape  the  incon- 
veniences which  might  have  resulted  from  the  application  of  article  7 
in  the  sense  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin,  which  has  had  no  other  effect  than 
to  render  more  difficult  the  situation  of  the  aliens. 
13001— 12456 


19 

Again,  writing  in  the  Romanul  of  December  25,  1881,  M. 
Rosetti,  an  ex-minister  and  one  of  the  leading  statesmen  of  the 
Kingdom,  has  this  to  say: 

We  may  congratulate  oui selves  to-day  on  having  solved  the  Jewish 
question  in  a  national  sense,  and  that — we  may  now  avow  loudly — con- 
trary to  the  manifest  will  of  the  powers  and  even  contrary  to  the  spirit 
of  the  treaty  of  Berlin. 

The  solution  of  "  the  Jewish  question"  in  "  a  national  seuse," 
it  will  be  readily  seen,  was  by  the  simple  method  of  having 
the  Roumanian  Parliament  pass  laws  antagonistic  to  "  stran- 
gers," and  then  have  all  public  officials  of  Roumania  re- 
gard the  Jews  as  "  strangers,"  in  the  application  of  those  laws. 

Nothing  can  better  illustrate  the  determined  efforts  of  the 
Roumanian  Government  to  evade  its  pledges  in  the  matter  of 
the  treaty  of  Berlin  than  its  systematic  legislation  against 
"  strangers,"  which  was,  in  fact,  intended  to  apply  only  to  the 
Jews.  The  following  classified  list  of  laws,  discriminating 
against  the  Jews,  will  prove  conclusively  that  Roumania,  from 
the  very  beginning,  never  had  any  intention  of  fulfilling  her 
obligations  under  Article  XLIV  of  that  treaty: 

October  21,  1879,  Roumanian  Senate  passes  law  stating  that  dis- 
tinction of  religion  shall  not  be  a  bar  to  civil  or  political  rights,  but 
that  "  strangers "  may  obtain  naturalization  only  by  special  law  on 
individual  demand  and  after  10  years'  residence.  (Act  VII  of  constitu- 
tion ;  Sincerus,  pp.  3-4.) 

June  6,  1880.  The  directors  and  auditors  of  the  National  Bank  of 
Roumania  must  be  Roumanians.  (Sincerus,  p.  77.) 

March  18,  1881.  Law  of  expulsion  passed,  authorizing  minister  of 
interior  to  expel  or  order  from  place  to  place,  without  giving  reason, 
any  "stranger"  likely  to  disturb  public  tranquillity.  (Sincerus,  p. 
146).  (Originally  intended  against  Nihilists  after  murder  of  Czar, 
but  afterwards  applied  to  Jews.) 

July  16,  1881.  Law  promulgated  declaring  that  all  "  agents  de- 
change  "  or  "  courtiers  de  merchandise  "  must  be  Roumanians  or  natural- 
ized, except  in  the  ports  (where  there  are  Christian  "strangers"). 
(Sincoms,  p.  45.) 

October  21,  1881.  Ministerial  council  extends  the  law  excluding 
Jews  from  the  sale  of  liquors  in  rural  districts  to  cities  and  towns 
included  in  such  districts.  (Sincerus,  pp.  22-23.) 

November  11,  1881.  All  "  strangers  "  in  Roumania  required  to  obtain 
a  permit  of  residence  before  they  may  pass  from  place  to  place.  (Sin- 
cerus, p.  163.) 

February  26,  18S2.  Jews  forbidden  to  be  customhouse  officers.  (Sin- 
.eerus,  p.  53.) 

November  3,  1882.  Roumanian  Senate  passes  law  declaring  all  "  in- 
habitants "  liable  to  military  service,  except  subjects  of  alien  States. 
(Sincerus,  p.  35.)  See  above,  June  23,  1868. 

January  31,  1884.  Roumanian  Senate  decides  that  "  strangers  "  have 
no  right  of  petition  to  Parliament.  (Sincerus,  p.  197.) 

March  19,  1884.  Law  passes  prohibiting  hawkers  from  trading  In 
rural  districts.  (Sincerus,  p  65.) 

April  15,  1885.  Pharmacy  law  permits  minister  of  interior  to  close 
any  pharmacy  not  under  direction  of  a  recognized  person ;  pharmacies 
13001—12456 


20 

may  be  acquired  only  by  Roumanians  or  by  naturalized  citizens ;   per- 
mission to  employ  "strangers"  extended  to  1886.      (Sincerus,  p.  104.) 

March  13.  1886.  Electors  of  chambers  of  commerce  must  be  persons 
having  political  rights.  (Sinceruo,  p.  75.) 

June  16,  18SG.  Druggists  must  be  Roumanians  or  naturalized  citizens. 
(Sincerus,  p.  84.) 

December  7,  1886.  Account  books  must  be  kept  in  Roumanian  or  in  a 
modern  European  language.  (Sincerus,  p.  81.)  (The  object  was  to 
keep  out  Yiddish.) 

February  28,  1887.  All  employees  of  the  "  regie "  must  be  Rou- 
manians or  naturalized.  (Sincerus,  p.  29.) 

April  28.  1S87.  Farmers  of  taxes  in  Roumania  must  be  persons 
capable  of  being  public  officers.  (Sincerus,  p.  89.) 

May  22,  1887.  Majority  of  administrators  of  private  companies  must 
be  Roumanians.  (Sincerus,  p.  78.) 

May  24,  1887.  Five  years  after  the  foundation  of  a  factory  two- 
thirds  of  its  workmen  must  bo  Roumanians.  (Sincerus,  p.  94.) 

August  4,  18S7.  Ministerial  circular  orders  preference  to  be  given 
to  children  of  Roumanians  in  the  order  of  admission  to  public  schools. 
(Sincerus,  p.  123.) 

1889.  Of  1,307  permits  issued  to  hawkers,  only  123  went  to  Jews; 
of  these:  only  G  were  held  in  Wallachia.  (Sincerus,  p.  70.) 

August  31,  1892.  Retired  Jewish  soldiers  are  not  allowed  to  serve  as 
rural  gendarmes.  (Siuccrus,  p.  40.) 

April  21,  1893.  Professional  education  permitted  to  "  strangers  "  only 
•when  places  are  available  and  on  payment  of  fees.  The  number  of 
"  strangers "  on  the  roll  of  such  an  educational  institution  must  not 
exceed  one-fifth  of  the  total  roll,  and  these  may  not  compete  for 
scholarships  "Strangers"  are  not  admitted  at  all  to  schools  of  agri- 
culture. (Sincerus,  p.  138.) 

May  20,  1893.  Roumanian  Senate  passes  law  giving  preference  to 
children  of  Roumanians  in  elementary  public  schools  and  placing  a  tax 
on  children  of  "strangers"  admitted.  (Sincerus,  p.  129.)  This  tax 
amounted  to  15  francs  for  rural  and  30  francs  for  urban  schools.  (Ib., 
127.) 

June  26,  1893.  Royal  decree  declaring  all  functionaries  In  the  sani- 
tary service  must  be  Roumanians  except  In  rural  districts.  "  Stranger  " 
invalids  may  be  admitted  to  free  public  hospitals  only  on  payment  of 
fees,  and  they  may  not  1n  any  case  occupy  more  than  10  per.  cent  of 
the  beds.  A  "  stranger  "  may  be  taken  as  an  apprentice  by  an  apothe- 
cary only  where  there  is  a  Roumanian  apprentice.  (Sincerus,  pp.  106, 
110,  115.) 

January  26,  1894  Farmers  may  be  represented  in  law  courts  by  their 
stewards  if  the  latter  be  Roumanians,  not  Jews.  (Sincerus,  p.  44.) 

May  22,  1895.  Students  in  the  military  hospitals  and  army  doctors 
must  be  either  Roumanians  or  naturalized  citizens.  (Sincerus,  p.  117.) 

April  13,  1896.  Jews  may  not  act  as  Intermediaries  at  the  customs 
in  Roumania.  (Sincerus,  p.  54.) 

June,  1896.  A  ministerial  order  declares  that  letters  on  school  busi- 
ness— excuses  for  absence,  etc. — need  not  be  stamped  except  in  the 
case  of  "  strangers  "  ;  only  children  of  "  strangers  "  are  required  to  pay 
entrance  fees  at  examinations.  (Sincerus,  p.  130.) 

June  26,  1896  Ministerial  order  instructs  rural  council  that  permis- 
sion to  remain  in  a  rural  district  may  be  revoked  at  any  moment. 
(Sincerus,  p.  185.) 

April  4,   1898.   Law   permitting  secondary  instruction  of  children   of 
"  strangers  "  only  where  places  are  available  and  on  payment  of  fees, 
though  to  Roumanians  tuition  is  free.     (Sincerus,  p.  133.) 
13001—12456 


21 

October,  1898.  Admission  to  public  schools  in  Roumania  refused  to 
11,200  Jewish  children.  (Sincerus.) 

February  18,  1899.  Only  Roumanians  henceforth  admitted  as  em- 
ployees on  State  railways.  (Sincerus,  p.  97.) 

October  21,  18J>9.  Ministerial  order  closes  private  Jewish  schools  in 
Roumania  on  Sundays.  (Sincerus,  p.  141.) 

1900.  Number  of  Jewish  children  in  elementary  public  schools  in 
Roumania  reduced  to  5J  per  cent ;  in  secondary  schools,  from  10J  per 
cent  (in  1895)  to  7£  per  cent.  (Sincerus,  p.  133.) 

February  27,  1900.  Ministerial  circular  orders  pupils  to  receive  in- 
structions in  Jewish  private  schools  with  heads  uncovered.  (Sincerus, 
p.  143.) 

March  28,  1900.  On  private  railways  60  per  cent  of  the  employees 
must  be  Roumanians.  (Sincerus,  p.  99.) 

April  17,  1900.  Ministerial  circular  orders  Jewish  private  schools  to 
open  on  Saturdays.  (Sincerus,  p.  142.) 

March  16,  1902.  Artisans'  bill  requires  special  authorization  from  the 
authorities  to  carry  on  any  trade,  only  to  bo  obtained  by  "  strangers  " — • 
i.  e.,  Jews — on  production  of  foreign  passports,  and  proof  that  in  their 
"  respective  countries  "  reciprocal  rights  are  accorded  to  Roumanians. 
(Am.  Jew.  Yearbook,  1902-3,  p.  30.) 

The  culmination  of  Roumanian  meanness  and  malignity  was 
reached  in  the  passage  of  the  artisans'  bill.  Other  measures 
had  been  designed  to  cripple  and  harass,  to  degrade  and  humili- 
ate them,  but  this  bill  was  evidently  intended  to  starve  the 
Jews  to  death,  for  it  inevitably  deprived  many  thousands  of 
Jewish  artisans  of  the  only  means  of  earning  their  daily  bread. 
The  ludicrous  absurdity  as  well  as  the  fiendish  cruelty  of  such 
a  law  are  shown  by  the  fact  that,  under  its  provisions,  no 
"foreigner"  was  permitted  to  exercise  a  handicraft  in  Rou- 
mania unless  "  he  could  show  reciprocity  for  Roumanians  in  his 
own  country."  The  Jews  being  "  foreigners  not  under  any  foreign 
protection"  were  unable  to  prove  this  reciprocity.  They  were 
therefore  unable  to  carry  on  any  trade  without  violating  the  law. 

Another  characteristic  illustration  of  the  ingenious  method 
employed  by  the  Roumanian  Parliament  in  framing  laws  to  evade 
the  spirit,  if  not  the  letter,  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin  is  afforded 
by  the  military  law  of  November  3,  1882.  By  Article  I  of  this 
law  "  all  the  inhabitants  "  of  the  country  are  liable  to  military 
service.  By  Article  II  "  subjects  of  foreign  States  "  are  declared 
ineligible  for  entrance  into  the  army.  The  Jews  being  "in- 
habitants "  of  the  country,  but  not  "  subjects  of  foreign  States," 
are  required  to  perform  military  service,  although  deprived  of 
all  civil  and  political  rights,  because  of  their  status  as  "  stran- 
gers." Although  forced  to  risk  the  dangers  and  bear  the  bur- 
dens of  war  as  privates  in  the  rank  they  are  denied  promotion 
on  the  ground  that  "  service  in  the  army  is  a  duty,  while  the 
rank  of  officer  is  a  public  function  reserved  for  Roumanian  citi- 
zens." These  distinctions  and  the  reasons  for  them  were  all 
solemnly  declared  in  a  speech  by  M.  Bratiano  in  the  Roumanian 

13001 — 1245G 


22 

Senate  May  27,  18S2.  But  it  is  needless  to  elaborate  the  ques- 
tion at  greater  length. 

The  hideous  result  of  long  years  of  persecution  and  oppres- 
sion, of  riot  and  massacre,  has  been  that  the  Jews  of  Roumauia 
have  been  barbarized  and  impoverished  and  that  life  for  most 
of  them  has  been  rendered  an  intolerable  burden.  Within  the 
last  10  years  60,000  of  them  have  been  forced  to  emigrate  and 
100,000  others  have  been  reduced  to  a  state  approaching  vaga- 
bondage. 

Shall  these  frightful  conditions  continue  to  exist?  Shall  the 
barbarous  practices  of  a  semicivilized  people  forever  violate  the 
precepts  and  shock  the  sentiments  of  civilization?  Shall  Article 
XLIV  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin  become  as  dead  a  letter  upon  the 
statute  books  of  nations  as  did  Article  XLVI  of  the  conference 
of  Paris?  What  says  old  England,  the  laud  of  Magna  Charta, 
of  the  Bill  of  Eights,  the  petition  of  rights,  and  habeas  corpus, 
the  birthplace  of  Hampdeu,  Pym,  and  Cromwell,  the  grandest 
and  most  majestic  among  the  commonwealths  of  the  earth? 
What  says  she,  a  party  to  the  treaty  of  Berlin?  Shall  the 
/nighty  power  that  conquered  Napoleon  and  preserved  the  lib- 
erties of  Europe  be  forever  defied  and  mocked  by  a  petty  and 
contemptible  little  Balkan  State?  What  says  France,  the  bril- 
liant and  beautiful  among  the  nations,  whose  chivalric  sym- 
pathies sent  Rochambeau  and  Lafayette  as  ambassadors  of 
freedom  to  our  shores?  What  says  she,  a  party  to  the  treaty 
of  Berlin?  Shall  the  bad  faith  and  insolence  of  Roumania  go 
forever  unpunished  and  unrebuked  while  France,  the  dauntless 
and  eternal  champion  of  the  rights  of  man,  stands  mute  and 
motionless?  And  last,  but  not  least,  what  says  America,  the 
country  of  Washington,  the  Republic  of  Jefferson,  the  Union 
of  Lincoln,  whose  Goddess  of  Liberty  in  the  harbor  of  Nt-w 
York  brandishes  forever  a  torch  of  freedom  as  a  beacon  light 
to  the  oppressed  and  distressed  of  all  the  world?  What  says 
America,  the  protagonist  of  republican  virtue  and  the  model  of 
newborn  Republics  throughout  the  earth?  Shall  she  give  no 
response  and  make  no  protest  when  a  suffering  and  helpless 
people  ask  for  sympathy  and  aid? 

But  it  is  contended  that  America  was  no  party  to  the  treaty 
of  Berlin  and  that  it  would  be  improper  therefore  for  her  to 
seek  to  interfere  in  the  local  affairs  of  Roumania.  There  is  a 
grain  of  truth  in  this  contention,  but  only  a  grain.  The  fatal 
defect  in  the  argument  is  that  the  barbarous  persecution  and 
merciless  oppression  of  any  race  within  the  borders  of  any 
country  causing  wholesale  emigration  of  the  members  of  that 
race  to  other  countries  as  a  means  of  preserving  life  are  the 
internal  affairs  of  the  state  guilty  of  the  persecution  and  op- 
13001 — 12450 


23 

pression  with  which  other  countries  have  no  concern  and  in 
which  they  should  not  interfere.  Such  a  contention  wrongfully 
assumes  that  the  intercessory  and  intervening  powers  of  civil- 
ized nations  are  suspended  and  paralyzed  when  the  laws  of 
humanity  and  the  rights  of  races  happen  to  conflict  with  the 
local  arrangements  of  some  small  despotic  government. 

Whether  rightfully  or  wrongfully,  America  has  already  pro- 
tested, in  vigorous  and  solemn  terms,  against  Roumanian  op- 
pression of  the  Jews;  and  this  protest  was  not  born  of  the 
hurry  and  heat  of  a  political  convention  or  of  any  other  volun- 
tary association  of  irresponsible  persons.  It  was  a  calm  and 
deliberate  act  of  American  diplomacy,  the  product  of  one  of  the 
noblest  and  finest  of  American  intellects. 

Following  the  passage  of  the  artisans'  bill  of  March  16,  1902, 
which  was  designed  to  prevent  the  Jews  from  earning  a  liveli- 
hood by  any  form  of  handicraft  or  trade,  Mr.  Secretary  Hay,  on 
August  11,  1902,  addressed  a  ministerial  note  of  protest  to  the 
Roumanian  Government,  pointing  out  the  tendency  of  such  legis- 
lation to  produce  an  abnormal  stream  of  emigration  to  the 
United  States.  The  following  is  the  essential  passage  of  that 
note : 

The  teachings  of  history  and  the  experience  of  our  own  Nation  show 
that  the  Jews  possess  in  a  high  degree  the  mental  and  moral  qualifica- 
tions of  conscientious  citizenhood.  No  class  of  immigrants  is  more  wel- 
come to  our  shores  when  coming  equipped  in  mind  and  body  for  entrance 
upon  the  struggle  for  bread  and  inspired  with  the  high  purpose  to  give 
the  best  service  of  heart  and  brain  to  the  land  they  adopt  of  their  own 
free  will ;  but  when  they  come  as  outcasts,  made  doubly  paupers  by 
physical  and  moral  oppression  in  their  native  land  and  thrown  upon  the 
long-suffering  generosity  of  a  more  favored  community,  their  migration 
lacks  the  essential  conditions  which  make  alien  immigration  either  ac- 
ceptable or  beneficial.  So  well  is  this  appreciated  on  the  Continent  that 
even  in  the  countries  where  anti-Semitism  has  no  foothold -it  is  difficult 
for  these  fleeing  Jews  to  obtain  any  lodgment.  America  is  their  only 
goal. 

The  United  States  offers  asylum  to  the  oppressed  of  all  lands,  but  its 
sympathy  with  them  in  no  wise  impairs  its  just  liberty  and  right  to 
weigh  the  acts  of  the  oppressor  in  the  light  of  their  effects  upon  this 
country  and  to  judge  accordingly. 

Putting  together  the  facts  now  plainly  bro'ught  home  to  this  Govern- 
ment during  the  past  few  years,  that  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  Rou- 
mania  are  being  forced  by  artificially  adverse  discriminations  to  quit 
their  native  country,  that  the  hospitable  asylum  offered  by  this  country 
is  almost  the  only  refuge  left  to  them,  that  they  come  hither  unfitted  by 
the  conditions  of  their  exile  to  take  part  in  the  new  life  of  this  land 
under  circumstances  either  profitable  to  themselves  or  beneficial  to  the 
community,  and  that  they  are  objects  of  charity  from  the  outset  and 
for  a  long  time,  the  right  of  remonstrance  against  the  acts  of  the  Rou- 
manian Government  is  clearly  established  in  favor  of  this  Government. 
Whether  consciously  and  of  purpose  or  not,  these  helpless  people,  bur- 
dened and  spurned  by  their  native  land,  are  forced  by  the  sovereign 
power  of  Roumania  upon  the  charity  of  the  United  States.  This  Gov- 
13001 — 12456 


eminent  can  not  be  a  tacit  party  to  such  an  International  wrong.  It  is 
constrained  to  protest  against  the  treatment  to  which  the  Jews  of  Rou- 
mania  are  subjected,  not  alone  because  it  has  unimpeachable  ground  to 
remonstrate  against  the  resultant  injury  to  itself,  but  in  the  name  of 
humanity.  The  United  States  may  not  authoritatively  appeal  to  the 
stipulations  of  (he  treaty  of  Berlin,  to  which  it  was  not  and  can  not 
become  a  signatory,  but  it  doc-s  earnestly  appeal  to  the  principles  con- 
signed therein  because  they  are  the  principles  of  international  law  and 
eternal  justice,  advocating  the  broad  toleration  which  that  solemn  com- 
pact enjoins  and  standing  ready  to  lend  its  moral  support  to  the  fulfill- 
ment thereof  by  its  cosignatories,  for  the  act  of  Roumania  itself  has 
effectively  joined  the  United  States  to  them  as  an  interested  party  in 
this  regard. 

It  iniglit.be  well  to  add  that  a  copy  of  this  note  of  Mr.  Hay, 
American  Secretary  of  State,  to  the  Government  of  Romnania. 
was  simultaneously  sent  to  the  Governments  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  Germany,  Italy,  Russia,  and  Turkey,  the  signatory  pow- 
ers of  the  treaty  of  Berlin.  By  this  act  the  United  States  served 
notice  upon  Roumania  and  upon  the  great  powers  of  Europe  that 
she  considered  herself  a  party  to  that  treaty,  if  not  hy  direct 
signature  then  at  least  by  the  laws  of  humanity,  by  the  princi- 
ples of  eternal  justice,  by  the  binding  obligations  of  interna- 
tional law  in  which  all  civilized  peoples  have  a  common  interest, 
and  by  the  right  of  self-preservation  involved  in  the  necessity 
of  protecting  her  own  population  and  her  own  civilization 
against  the  barbarized  and  impoverished  victims  of  Roumanian 
persecution. 

This  authoritative  action  of  our  State  Department  some  10 
years  ago  is  still  a  landmark  and  a  precedent.  No  one  will 
question  the  righteousness  of  the  motive  or  the  soundness  of 
the  political  principle  involved  in  this  action.  No  one  can  ef- 
fectively contend  that  this  diplomatic  step  should  not  have  been 
taken.  The  only  regret  that  can  be  expressed  is  that  the  results 
accomplished  were  not  greater.  , 

Historical  considerations  affecting  the  discussion  of  the  pres- 
ent question  are  these:  A  great  Balkan  war  has  just  been  termi- 
nated. Roumania  was  involved  indirectly  in  the  struggle. 
Changes  in  territory,  similar  to  those  brought  about  at  the  close 
of  the  Russo-Turkish  War  of  1877-78,  will  probably  be  made. 
The  Roumanians,  it  is  said,  contemplate  revising  their  present 
constitution  in  view  of  changed  conditions.  It  is  more  than 
probable  that  the  great  powers  of  Europe  will  again  be  called 
upon  to  adjust,  in  international  conference,  various  questions 
growing  out  of  the  recent  war. 

Now,  after  the  lapse  of  30  years,  Roumanian  persecution  of 
the  Jews  exists  in  more  acute  and  malignant  form  than  when 
Mr.  Hay  dispatched  his  note  of  diplomatic  protest.  Roumanian 
laws  against  the  Jews  have  become  more  stringent  and  oppres- 
sive. Social  discrimination  and  ostracism  have  become  more 
13001— 1245G 


pitiless  and  humiliating.    Riot  and  massacre  are  still  as  immi- 
nent as  ever. 

In  view  of  tlie  approaching  conference  of  the  powers,  what 
shall  be  done,  what  can  be  done  to  compel  Roumania  to  act 
justly  and  humanely  by  the  Jews  within  her  borders?  The 
powers  will  have  no  difficulty,  in  the  matter  of  the  Jews,  with 
any  other  Balkan  State.  At  the  same  time  and  in  exactly  the 
same  language  as  that  employed  in  the  case  of  Rouinania,  Servia 
and  Montenegro  promised  the  congress  of  Berlin  to  guarantee  civil 
and  religious  freedom  to  the  Jews  within  their  territories  in  con- 
sideration of  the  recognition  of  their  independence.  Both  Servia 
and  Montenegro  have  faithfully  kept  these  pledges,  which  demon- 
strates conclusively  that  there  was  no  inherent  difficulty,  no  insu- 
perable obstacle  in  the  way  of  Roumania's  doing  the  same  thing. 

My  own  opinion  is  that  the  United  States  should  accept  the 
invitation  of  the  European  powers  to  become  a  member  of  the 
approaching  international  congress,  if  such  an  invitation  is  ex- 
tended. I  have  been  reliably  informed  that  our  Government 
was  invited  to  participate  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Berlin  Con- 
gress, but  declined.  If  we  are  not  invited  we  should  ask  that 
the  United  States  be  permitted  to  be  a  party  to  the  next  con- 
ference of  the  powers.  We  should  then  join  with  other  nations 
in  reminding  Roumania  of  existing  obligations,  and  in  imposing 
fresh  ones  upon  her  in  a  manner  that  will  preclude  any  possi- 
bility of  violating  them  in  the  future.  If  no  new  conference  of 
the  powers  is  called,  or  if  the  United  States  for  any  reason 
should  not  be  a  party  to  it  if  one  is  called,  then  let  us  again, 
and  repeatedly  if  need  be,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Hay,  lend  our 
"  moral  support  "  to  the  gi'eat  cause  of  civil  liberty  and  religious 
emancipation,  by  such  representations  to  the  great  Governments 
of  Europe  as  will  secure  prompt  and  vigorous  action  on  their 
part,  in  compelling  Roumania,  even  at  this  late  date,  to  perform 
her  pledges  under  Article  XLVI  of  the  conference  of  Paris  and 
Article  XLIV  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin.  If  her  sense  of  national 
honor  and  international  obligation  does  not  incline  Roumauia  to 
deeds  of  justice  and  righteousness,  then  let  the  strong  arm  of 
force  be  used  and  the  wrath  of  the  nations  be  visited  upon  her. 

But  why  should  we  do  all  these  things  for  the  Jews,  you  ask? 
The  reply  is  that  these  things  are  not  to  be  done  primarily  for 
the  Jews.  They  are  to  be  done  to  promote  and  maintain  civil 
liberty  and  religious  freedom  among  men;  to  prevent  offenses 
against  international  morality  and  to  uphold  the  dignity  and 
sanctity  of  international  law;  and,  above  all  things,  to  compel 
respect  for  the  laws  of  humanity  and  regard  for  the  principles 
of  eternal  justice.  These  are  the  primary  objects  of  action  to 
be  taken  against  Roumauia. 
13001 — 12450 


26 

But  if  you  challenge  me  to  open  declaration  I  will  candidly 
say  to  you  that  I  am  in  favor  of  doing  all  manner  of  good 
things  at  all  times  for  the  Jews  simply  because  they  are  Jews. 
And  in  this  declaration  is  no  sickly  sentimentality,  no  maudlin 
sentiment.  I  am  well  aware  that  the  Jewish  race  is  not  a  per- 
fect one.  The  Jews,  along  with  all  the  balance  of  us,  have  in- 
herited the  curse  of  Eden.  The  stamp  of  sin  is  upon  the  Jewish 
as  well  as  upon  the  gentile  brow.  From  the  records  of  the 
courts  we  gather  that  there  are  Jewish  as  well  as  Christian 
criminals.  And  undoubtedly  the  sons  of  Abraham  Tire  afflicted 
at  times  with  all  the  faults  and  frailties  to  which  human  flesh 
is  heir. 

And,  again,  it  should  be  cheerfully  admitted  that  individual 
Jews  are  not  entitled  to  receive  and  should  not  receive  any  par- 
ticular consideration;  any  special  clemency  in  the  exigencies 
and  crises  of  life.  If  Jews  steal,  they  should  be  sent  to  prison 
along  with  gentile  thieves.  If  they  murder,  the  death  penalty 
should  be  administered  to  them  as  in  the  case  of  others.  If 
Jews  are  physically,  mentally,  or  morally  unclean,  they  should 
be  socially  ostracized  and  banished,  as  should  gentiles  who  are 
similarly  afflicted.  If  Jews  are  guilty  of  uupardoued  sins 
against  the  laws  of  God,  they  should  be  consigned  to  the  same 
place  and  for  the  same  length  of  time  in  the  hereafter  as  in  the 
case  of  gentile  sinners.  These  statements  and  concessions  I 
gladly  and  cheerfully  make.  But  having  said  these  things,  I 
must  be  permitted  to  repeat  the  'declaration  that  where  the 
Jewish  race  as  such  is  concerned  and  its  rights  are  involved  in 
terms  of  religious  persecution  all  doubts  should  be  resolved  in 
favor  of  the  Jews. 

The  marvelous  contributions  of  the  Jewish  people  to  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual  wealth  of  the  world  entitle  them  to  the 
gratitude  and  homage,  not  the  hatred  and  persecution  of  man- 
kind. If  gratitude  were  a  supreme  virtue  of  nations,  as  it 
should  be  of  individuals,  there  would  never  be  any  organized 
governmental  persecution  of  the  Jews.  The  civilized  nations  of 
this  earth  are  too  deeply  and  everlastingly  indebted  to  the  Jews 
to  be  able  ever  to  cancel  the  obligation.  They  should  at  least 
treat  them  with  humanity  and  accord  them  those  considerations 
which  are  the  absolute  essentials  of  happiness  in  a  civilized  state. 

The  ghastly  feature  of  Jewish  persecution  is  the  fact  that  it 
was  probably  born  of  the  refusal  of  the  Jews  to  yield  the  divine 
unity  of  Jehovah  to  the  polytheistic  demands  of  ancient  Rome. 
Forupey  the  Great  conquered  Palestine  and  made  it  a  dependent 
Roman  state  some  63  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  The 
ordinary  results  and  usual  incidents  of  Roman  provincial  ad- 
ministration followed.  Among  these  was  the  attempt  to  blend 

13001 — 12456 


27 

the  religion  and  mingle  the  god  or  gods  of  the  conquered  conn- 
try  with  the  religion  and  gods  of  Rome.  Jewish  monotheism, 
which  civilization  to-day  prizes  as  its  most  precious  jewel,  was 
then  sought  to  be  destroyed. 

The  civil  and  religious  differences  between  Jews  and  Romans 
were  at  once  fundamental  and  fatal.  In  the  first  place,  these 
two  races  have  shown  themselves  to  be,  by  all  odds,  the  most 
masterful  of  mankind.  The  Romans  founded  the  world's  great- 
est physical  empire.  The  Jews  founded  the  earth's  most  illus- 
trious kingdom  of  the  spirit.  In  the  fiber  of  both  Jew  and 
Roman  were  to  be  found  those  elements  of  mastery  and  control 
that  have  nowhere  else  been  seen  in  the  organization  of  any 
race,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  English.  The  Romans 
would  brook  no  earthly  opposition  and  the  Jews  would  submit 
to  none  but  God.  The  Romans  worshiped  a  whole  host  of  greater 
and  lesser  deities,  who  inhabited  earth  and  sky,  mountains,  seas, 
and  streams.  Against  this  polytheism  of  a  most  extravagant 
kind  the  Jews  pitted  the  doctrine  of  monotheism,  the  jealous 
and  exclusive  worship  of  one  great  God.  Again,  polytheism 
was  an  integral  part  of  the  government  of  the  Roman  state  and 
could  not  be  attacked  or  derided  without  constituting  an  act 
of  treason  against  the  laws  of  Rome  and  the  sovereignty  of 
Csesar.  On  the  other  hand,  the  religion  of  the  Jews  and  their 
law  were  identical.  To  submit  to  the  worship  of  Roman  gods 
was  not  only  an  act  of  treason  to  Jehovah,  but  was  also  an 
abrogation  of  Jewish  nationality  and  a  repeal  of  all  Jewish 
laws.  These  considerations  constituted  a  definite  and  acute  issue 
between  the  Roman  masters  of  the  world  and  the  chosen  seed  of 
God.  The  character  of  each  race  was  such  that  neither  would  sur- 
render, and  the  result  was,  of  necessity,  a  mere  struggle  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  Both  were  victorious.  The  Romans  de- 
stroyed the  physical  kingdom  of  the  Jews;  the  Jews  destroyed 
polytheism,  the  religious  empire  of  the  Romans ;  and  out  of  the 
struggle,  which  lasted  for  centuries,  grew  a  bitterness  and  hate 
that  has  been  handed  down  to  the  modern  world  as  a  hideous 
legacy  and  from  which  massacre  and  persecution  have  been  born 
and  multiplied. 

Monotheism  is  Judaism's  great  contribution  to  the  religious 
thought  of  mankind  and  to  the  civilization  of  the  earth.  And 
for  consenting  that  their  country  should  be  conquered,  their 
nationality  destroyed,  and  their  race  dispersed  throughout  the 
world,  in  order  that  this  best  and  noblest  gift  of  God  to  man 
might  not  be  sacrificed  to  pagan  and  barbarian  superstition,  but 
might  instead  be  transmitted  as  a  heavenly  heritage  to  all  future 
generations  of  men;  the  Jews  have  received,  not  the  gratitude 
and  love  but  the  hate  and  oppression  of  the  nations. 

13001 — 12456 


28 

The  Jew  is  the  Prometheus  of  history.  The  JSschylean 
Prometheus  snatched  fire  from  the  skies  and  gave  it  to  mankind 
as  a  priceless  boon.  As  a  reward  for  his  trouble  he  was  chained 
to  a  rock  while  a  vulture  preyed  upon  his  liver.  The  Jew 
received  the  fire  of  monotheism  from  Heaven  and  gave  it  to 
man.  For  his  care  and  solicitude  he  has  been  chained  to  the 
rock  of  the  ages  while  the  vultures  of  hatred,  persecution,  riot, 
and  massacre  have  preyed  upon  his  heart. 

Another  hideous  feature  of  Jewish  persecution  is  the  fact  that 
its  chief  intensifying  cause  for  nearly  20  centuries  has  been  a 
total  misunderstanding  and  misconception  of  the  real  facts  and 
true  meaning  of  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus.  The  cruel  and  sense- 
less notion  of  the  implacable  wrath  of  Deity  has  prevailed  in  nil 
the  ages  as  an  explanation  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and 
the  dispersion  and  persecution  of  the  Jews.  It  is  worse  than 
nonsense  to  see  in  this  event  anything  but  the  operation  of 
vulgar  physical  forces  of  the  most  ordinary  land.  The  fall  of 
Jerusalem  was  a  most  natural  and  consequential  thing.  It  was 
not  even  an  extraordinary  historical  occurrence,  even  in  Jewish 
history.  Titus  did  not  so  completely  destroy  Jerusalem  as  did 
Nebuchadnezzar  before  him.  Razing  cities  to  the  ground  was  a 
customary  Roman  act.  a  form  of  pastime,  a  characteristic 
Roman  proceeding  in  the  case  of  stubborn  and  rebellious  towns. 
Scipio  razed  Carthage  and  drove  Carthaginians  into  the  most 
remote  corners  of  the  earth.  Was  any  Roman  or  Punic  god 
interested  in  this  event?  Caesar  destroyed  many  Gallic  cities 
and  scattered  Gauls  throughout  the  world.  Was  any  deity  con- 
cerned about  these  things? 

Roman  admiration  was  at  times  enkindled,  but  Roman  clem- 
ency was  never  gained  by  deeds  of  valor  directed  against  the 
arms  of  Rome.  Neither  Hannibal  nor  Mithradates,  Vercinge- 
torix  nor  Jugurtha,  the  grandest  of  her  enemies,  received  any 
mercy  at  her  hands.  To  oppose  her  will  was  to  invite  destruc- 
tion ;  and  the  sequel  was  a  mere  question  of  "  the  survival  of 
the  fittest."  The  most  turbulent,  rebellious,  and  determined  of 
all  the  imperial  dependencies  was  the  Province  of  Judea.  The 
Jews  regarded  the  Romans  as  idolaters,  and  instead  of  obeying 
them  as  masters  despised  and  defied  them  as  barbarians.  When 
this  spirit  became  manifest  and  promised  to  be  perpetual  the 
dignity  of  the  Roman  name,  as  well  as  the  safety  of  the  Roman 
State,  demanded  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  dispersion 
of  the  Jews;  and  destruction  and  dispersion  followed  as  natu- 
rally as  any  profane  effect  follows  any  vulgar  cause. 

But  the  advocates  of  the  divine-wrath  theory  quote  Scriptures 
and  point  to  prophecy  in  support  of  their  contention.     Then 
Scriptures  must  be  pitted  against  Scriptures.     The  last  prayer 
13001— 1245G 


of  the  Master  on  the  cross  must  be  made  to  repeal  every  earlier 
Scriptural  prophecy  or  decree.  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they 
know  not  what  they  do,"  is  the  sublimest  utterance  in  the  litera- 
ture of  the  world.  It  is  the  epitome  of  every  Christian  virtue 
and  of  all  religious  truth.  This  proclamation  from  the  cross 
repealed  the  Mosaic  law  of  hereditary  sin,  placed  upon  a  per- 
sonal basis  responsibility  for  offenses  against  God  and  man,  and 
served  notice  upon  future  generations  that  those  who  "  know 
not  what  they  do  "  are  entitled  to  be  spared  and  forgiven.  To 
believe  that  God  ignored  the  prayer  of  Christ  on  the  cross,  and 
that  the  centuries  of  persecution  of  the  Jews  which  followed 
were  but  the  fulfillment  of  prophecy  and  fate,  is  to  assail  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus  and  to  question  the  goodness  and  mercy  of 
Jehovah.  Jesus  knew  the  full  meaning  of  his  prayer  and  was 
serious  unto  death.  To  believe  that  the  Father  rejected  the 
petition  of  the  Son  is  to  destroy  the  equality  of  the  persons  of 
the  Trinity  by  investing  one  with  the  authority  and  power  to  re- 
view, revise,  and  reject  the  judgments  and  petitions  of  the  others. 

If  the  Christian  doctrine  be  true  that  Christ  was  God  "  mani- 
fest in  the  flesh  " ;  if  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  be  tine  that 
God  the  Father,  God  the  Sou,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost  are  one 
and  the  same,  eternal  and  inseparable,  then  the  prayer  of  Jesus 
on  the  cross  was  not  a  petition,  but  a  declaration  that  the 
malefactors  of  the  crucifixion  who,  in  the  blindness  of  ignorance, 
had  helped  to  kill  the  Son  of  Man,  would  receive  at  the  last  day 
the  benefits  of  the  amnesty  of  the  Father  of  mercy  and  for- 
giveness. 

If  the  perpetrators  of  the  great  injustice  of  the  Sanhedrin 
and  of  the  Pretorium  are  to  be  forgiven  because  they  knew 
not  what  they  did,  is  there  any  justice,  human  or  divine,  in 
persecuting  their  innocent  descendants  of  all  lauds  and  ages? 
"  When  Sir  Moses  Montefiore  was  taunted  by  a  political  op- 
ponent with  the  memory  of  Calvary  and  described  by  him  as 
one  who  sprang  from  the  murderers  who  crucified  the  world's 
Redeemer,  the  next  morning  the  Jewish  philanthropist,  whom 
Christendom  has  learned  to  honor,  called  upon  his  assailant  and 
showed  him  the  record  of  his  ancestors  which  had  been  kept 
for  2,000  years  and  which  showed  that  their  home  had  been  in 
Spain  for  200  years  before  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  born."  This 
half-humorous  anecdote  illustrates  the  utter  absurdity  and 
supreme  injustice  of  connecting  the  modern  Jew  with  ancient 
tragic  history.  The  elemental  forces  of  reason,  logic,  courage, 
and  sympathy  wrapped  up  and  interwoven  in  every  impulse  and 
fiber  of  the  human  mind  and  heart  will  be  forever  in  rebellion 
against  the  monstrous  doctrine  of  centuries  of  shame,  exile,  and 
persecution  visited  upon  an  entire  race  because  of  the  sins  and 

13001 — 1245G 


30 

crimes  of  a  handful  of  their  progenitors  who  lived  more  than  a 
thousand  years  before. 

But  if  the  visitation  of  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  sons 
is  to  be  maintained  and  perpetuated  as  a  form  of  divine,  if  not 
of  human  justice,  why  not,  at  least,  be  consistent  in  the  applica- 
tion of  the  principle?  Many  philosophers  and  critics  have 
detected  a  striking  kinship  between  the  teachings  of  Socrates 
and  those  of  Jesus.  A  celebrated  historian  closes  a  chapter  of 
the  history  of  Greece  with  this  sentence : 

Thus  perished  the  greatest  and  most  original  of  the  Grecian  philoso- 
phers (Socrates),  whose  uninspired  wisdom  made  the  nearest  approach 
to  the  divine  morality  of  the  Gospel. 

The  indictments  against  the  philosopher  of  Athens  and  the 
Prophet  of  Nazareth  were  strikingly  similar.  Socrates  was 
charged  with  corrupting  Athenian  youth ;  Jesus,  with  perverting 
the  nation.  Socrates  was  charged  with  treason  against  Athens ; 
Jesus,  with  treason  against  Rome.  Both  were  charged  with 
blasphemy — the  Athenian  with  blasphemy  of  the  Olympic  gods — 
the  Nazarene  with  blaspheming  Jehovah.  Both  sealed  with 
their  blood  the  faith  that  was  in  them.  If  the  descendants  of 
the  crucifiers  of  the  Christ  are  to  be  persecuted,  brutalized,  and 
exiled  for  the  sins  of  the  fathers,  why  not  apply  the  same 
pitiless  law  of  hereditary  punishment  to  the  descendants  of  the 
Athenian  dicasts  who  administered  hemlock  to  the  greatest  sage 
of  antiquity?  Why  not  persecute  all  the  Greeks  of  the  earth, 
wherever  found,  because  of  the  injustice  of  the  Areopagus? 

Let  uo  persecutor  of  the  Jew  lay  the  unction  to  his  soul  that 
he  is  justified  by  the  tragedy  of  Golgotha,  for  he  who  persecutes 
in  the  name  of  religion  is  a  spiritual  barbarian,  an  intellectual 
savage.  Let  this  same  persecutor  not  make  the  mistake  of  sup- 
posing that  the  Jews  are  wholly  responsible  for  the  persecution 
that  has  been  heaped  upon  them.  Before  he  falls  into  the  fool- 
ish blunder  of  such  a  supposition  let  him  ponder  the  testimony 
of  several  gentile  experts  upon  the  subject.  Let  him  read 
The  Scattered  Nation,  a  brilliant  lecture  on  the  Jew  by  the 
late  Zebulou  Vance,  of  North  Carolina,  in  which  occurs  this 
sentence :  "  If  the  Jew  is  a  bad  job,,  in  all  honesty  we  should 
contemplate  him  as  the  handiwork  of  our  own  civilization." 
Let  him  find  Shakespearean  confirmation  of  this  statement  in 
The  Merchant  of  Venice,  act  3,  scene  1.  If  the  Jew  baiter 
objects  that  this  is  the  imagination  of  a  poet,  let  us  then  point 
him  to  the  testimony  of  a  great  historian  and  statesman  to  prove 
to  him  that  the  gentile  is  in  great  measure  responsible  for  the 
causes  that  have  produced  Jewish  persecution. 

In  the  British  House  of  Commons  on  April  17,  1833,  a  bill  for 
the  removal  of  the  disabilities  of  the  Jews  was  the  subject  of 
13001—12456 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  099  721     3 


31 

parliamentary  discussion.    Lord  Macaulay  took  part  in  the  de- 
bate and  spoke  as  follows : 

The  honorable  member  for  Oldham  tells  us  that  the  Jews  are  nat- 
urally a  mean  race,  a  money-getting  race  ;  that  they  are  averse  to  all 
honorable  callings ;  that  they  neither  sow  nor  reap ;  that  they  have 
neither  flocks  nor  herds ;  that  usury  is  the  only  pursuit  for  which  they 
are  fit ;  that  they  are  destitute  of  all  elevated  and  amiable  sentiments. 

Such,  sir,  has  in  every  age  been  the  reasoning  of  bigots.  They  never 
fail  to  plead  in  justification  of  persecution  the  vices  which  persecution 
has  engendered.  England  has  been  legally  a  home  to  the  Jews  less 
than  half  a  century,  and  we  revile  them  because  they  do  not  feel  for 
England  more  than  a  half  patriotism. 

We  treat  them  as  slaves  and  wonder  that  they  do  not  regard  us  as 
brethren.  We  drive  them  to  mean  occupations  and  tlv.^n  reproach  them 
for  not  embracing  honorable  professions.  We  long  forbade  them  to  pos- 
sess land  and  we  complain  that  they  chiefly  occupy  themselves  in  trade. 
We  shut  them  out  from  all  the  paths  of  ambition  and  then  we  despise 
them  for  taking  refuge  in  avarice. 

During  many  ages  we  have,  in  our  dealings  with  them,  abused  our 
immense  superiority  of  force,  and  then  we  are  disgusted  because  they 
have  recourse  to  that  cunning  which  is  the  natural  and  universal  de- 
fense of  the  weak  against  the  violence  of  the  strong.  But  were  they 
always  a  mere  money -changing,  money-getting,  money-hoarding  race? 
Nobody  knows  better  than  my  honor-able  friend,  tne  member  for  the 
University  of  Oxford,  that  there  is  nothing  in  their  national  character 
which  unfits  them  for  the  highest  duties  of  citizens. 

He  knows  that  in  the  infancy  of  civilization,  when  our  island  was  as 
savage  as  New  Guinea,  when  letters  and  art  were  still  unknown  to 
Athens,  when  scarcely  a  thatched  hut  stood  on  what  was  afterwards 
the  site  of  Rome,  this  contemned  people  had  their  fenced  cities  and 
cedar  palaces,  their  splendid  temple,  their  fleets  of  merchant  ships, 
their  schools  of  sacred  learning,  their  great  statesmen  and  soldiers, 
their  natural  philosophers,  their  historians,  and  their  poets. 

What  nation  ever  contended  more  manfully  against  overwhelming 
odds  for  its  independence  and  religion?  What  nation  ever,  hi  its  last 
agonies,  gave  such  signal  proofs  of  what  may  be  accomplished  by  a 
brave  despair?  And  if,  in  the  course  of  many  centuries,  the  depressed 
descendants  of  warriors  and  sages  have  degenerated  from  the  qualities 
of  their  fathers  ;  if,  while  excluded  from  the  blessings  of  law  and  bowed 
down  under  the  yoke  of  slavery,  they  have  contracted  some  of  the 
vices'  of  outlaws  and  slaves,  shall  we  consider  this  is  a  matter  of  re- 
proach to  them?  Shall  we  not  rather  consider  it  as  a  matter  of  shame 
and  remorse  to  ourselves?  Let  us  do  justice  to  them.  Let  us  open  to 
them  the  door  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Let  us  open  to  them  every 
career  in  which  ability  and  energy  can  be  displayed.  Till  we  have  done 
this  let  us  not  presume  to  say  that  there  is  no  genius  among  the  coun- 
trymen of  Isaiah,  no  heroism  among  the  descendants  of  the  Maccabees. 

What  more  eloquent  tribute  to  the  Jew  and  his  achievements 
could  be  found  in  the  literature  of  the  earth?  And  is  every 
word  of  it  not  as  true  to-day  when  applied  to  the  Jews  of 
Rouinania  as  it  was  when  spoken  by  Macaulay  of  the  Jews  of 
England  more  than  70  years  ago? 

But,  if  the  persecutor  of  the  Jew  is  not  moved  by  the  elo- 
quence of  Macaulay  or  by  the  satire  and  sarcasm  of  Shake- 
speare, then  let  him  call  the  roll  of  Hebrew  great  names  and 
watch  the  mighty  procession  as  it  moves.  Abraham  among 
13001—12450 


32 

patriarchs;  Moses  among  lawgivers;  Isfiiah  and  Jeremiah  among 
prophets;  Solomon  and  David  among  kings;  Philo,  Maimonides, 
Spinoza,  and  Mendelsohn  among  philosophers;  Herschel,  Syl- 
vester, Jacobi,  and  Kronecker  among  mathematicians  and  as- 
tronomers; Josephus,  Neanclcr,  Graetz,  Palgrave,  and  Geiger 
among  historians;  Mendelssohn,  Meyerbeer,  Offenbach.  Gold- 
mark,  Joachim,  Rubinstein,  and  Strauss  among  musicians; 
Sonneuthal,  Possart,  Rachel,  and  Bernhardt  among  actors  and 
actresses;  Disraeli,  Gambetta,  Castelar,  Lasker,  Cremieux,  and 
Bei:jamin  among  statesmen;  Halevi  and  Heine  among  poets; 
Karl  Marx  and  Samuel  Gompers  amo'ig  labor  leaders  and  po- 
litical economists;  the  Rothschilds,  Bleichrorders,  Schiffs.  and 
Seligmaus  among  financiers;  Auerbach  and  Nordau  among  nov- 
elists; Sir  Moses  Moutefiore  and  Baron  Hirsch  among  philan- 
thropists. 

Civilization  may  well  rush  to  the  rescue  of  the  Jew  when 
threatened  with  destruction  as  a  terrified  and  frantic  mother 
struggles  to  save  a  favorite  child,  for  if  the  Bible  and  the 
Talmud  of  the  Jews,  with  all  that  they  teach  and  mean,  should 
be  stricken  from  the  earth,  mankind  would  relapse  with  fright- 
ful speed  into  savage  and  barbaric  night. 

Liberty  may  well  complain  when  Jews  are  persecuted  and 
oppressed,  for  Irom  the  days  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  the  first 
great  revolutionists  of  earth,  to  the  times  of  Gambetta  and 
Castelar,  the  fierce  and  uncompromising  advocates  of  repub- 
lican government  in  France  and  Spain,  freedom's  c.-ui^e  has 
had  no  nobler,  braver  champions  than  the  sons  of  Israel. 

Religion  and  Literature  will  gladly  join  hands  with  Liberty 
and  Civilization,  their  dearest  children,  in  protesting  against, 
mistreatment  of  the  sons  of  Abraham,  for,  in  every  century  of 
history,  with  their -hands  tied  behind  them  and  their  hearts  bur- 
dened to  the  breaking  point,  with  a  bitter  load  of  hatred  and 
persecution,  Jews  have  yet  managed,  from  the  cave  of  the 
prophets  and  from  the  manger  of  the  Christ,  from  the  filth  of 
the  Judengasse,  and  from  the  darkness  of  the  hovels  of  the 
Ghetto,  to  plant  in  the  garden  of  life,  in  the  soil  of  the  soul,  the 
most  beautiful  and  fragrant  flowers  that  bloom  and  blossom  there. 

This  race  deserves  the  gratitude  and  homage,  not  the  hatred 
and  persecution  of  mankind.  The  parliaments  and  congresses 
of  enlightened  nations,  whose  peoples  are  truly  grateful,  civ- 
ilized, and  free,  will  in  the  future  extend  to  the  Jewish  race, 
the  chief  benefactors  of  mankind,  a  positive  protection,  and  will 
guarantee  to  each  and  every  one  of  them  who  is  honestly  guided 
and  righteously  disposed,  a  free  hand  with  a  full  swing  in  the 
struggle  of  life.  [Loud  applause.] 

13001—12456 

o 


